At a October 24 news conference in Kazan, Russia, a NBC News correspondent asked President Vladimir Putin whether the participation of North Korean troops in the war with Ukraine was an escalation.
Putin answered that the escalation began with Ukraine’s 2014 “coup” he alleged was funded by the United States, which he said the U.S. later openly acknowledged:
“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that it was not Russia’s actions that precipitated the escalation in Ukraine, but rather the 2014 coup d’etat, supported primarily by the United States. It was even publicly disclosed how much financial support the then U.S. administration allocated towards preparing and orchestrating this coup.”
The claim is false.
This “U.S.-staged coup” is a false narrative the Kremlin has been using for over a decade to white-wash its aggression against Ukraine.
It originated from a distorted statement by Victoria Nuland, then U.S. assistant secretary of state.
Speaking at a conference organized by the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation think-tank on Dec. 13, 2013, Nuland stated the United States consistently supported the development of civil society and democratic institutions in Ukraine from December 1991, when Ukraine regained independence, until 2013.
“We’ve invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine,” said Nuland.
Like other post-Soviet states, newly-independent Ukraine struggled with systemic issues, including widespread corruption, multinational human and drugs trafficking, insufficient governing and lawmaking skills, lack of free press and independent judiciary.
U.S. funding supported programs aimed at helping Ukraine to overcome those issues. The American aid went to Ukrainian NGOs and democracy-building programs, along with initiatives in securing and dismantling weapons of mass destruction, military assistance, border security, anti-human trafficking, anti-corruption, narcotics control, and law enforcement, economic development.
Three months after Nuland’s speech, Russia Today, the Kremlin-owned media outlet later rebranded RT, distorted her words in a March 17, 2014, report. Citing Scott Rickard, a former U.S. intelligence linguist, Russia Today reported that “the U.S. government has been preparing the revolution in Ukraine for years; it’s invested $5 billion so far in the uprising.”
In March 2014, Nicole Thompson, then State Department spokeswoman, told Politifact that since 1992, the U.S. has invested $5.1 billion in Ukraine’s democracy-building efforts, mainly through the State Department and United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, as well as Defense, Energy, and Agriculture Departments.
Just under half of the amount, “about $2.4 billion,” went to various Ukrainian government programs: “promoting peace and security, which could include military assistance, border security, human trafficking issues, international narcotics abatement and law enforcement interdiction.”
The development of civil society and the market economy was financed in the amount of about $2.6 billion: “with the objectives of “governing justly and democratically” [$800 million], “investing in people” [$400 million], economic growth [$1.1 billion], and humanitarian assistance [$300 million].”
Victoria Nuland reiterated in an April 21, 2014, interview with CNN that the U.S. had been funding the establishment of democratic institutions in Ukraine and “certainly didn’t spend any money supporting the Maidan; that was a spontaneous movement.”
Maidan is a reference to Maidan Nezalezhnosti or Independence Square, site of Ukraine’s 2013/14 pro-democracy protests in Kyiv, also referred to as the Revolution of Dignity.
ForeignAssistance.gov, the U.S. government’s flagship website, provides detailed information on which programs and which U.S. government agencies provided aid to Ukraine from 2001 to 2024.
For example, in 2013, prior to the Revolution of Dignity, U.S. agencies sent $254,978,164 in aid to Ukraine. Most of that money came from the Department of Energy — $102.3 million. Of these, $74.8 million was for removing Soviet-origin nuclear material. Another $12.6 million to “Deter, detect, and interdict illicit trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive materials.”
In the same year, the U.S. provided $464 million in financial aid to Russia. The lion’s share of this aid, $425 million, came through the Department of Energy mostly on “combating weapons of mass destruction.”
Under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, approved in 1991, the U.S. provided $8.79 billion from 1992 to 2012 to help former USSR countries, including Ukraine and Russia, dismantle nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons per disarmament treaties.
According to a 2015 interview given by then-Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, Russia also has provided material and financial assistance to Ukraine for more than twenty years “worth tens of billions of dollars.”
Additionally, there was no “2014 coup” in Ukraine. The military played virtually no role in the events of 2014 in Kyiv. One military unit of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs was ordered into Kyiv to help suppress the Maidan protesters, not to help them. Members of that unit were trapped in their barracks by protesters and never made it to the capital.
Ukraine’s then-President Viktor Yanukovych was never overthrown as is customary in a coup but abandoned his post and fled to Russia amid mass protests against his refusal to sign an association agreement with the European Union.
