As with anything else, to fully understand what is happening now and why, we need to take a closer look at the beginning.
In 2013, protesters started to gather in Kiev to support their country signing the EU associations agreement, paving the way to closer EU ties, more use of the Euro and eventual EU membership. The Yanukovich government initially supported this step, since it meant the most economic and geo-political benefit for his country and people. But Russia was in negotiations with Ukraine as well to sign the EAEU agreement, and when Moscow upped the stakes and out-offered Brussels, Yanukovich eventually decided to opt for the EAEU instead of the EU associations agreement. This is when the pro-EU protesters began to get violent in Kiev, but it didn't stop there.
Important to note, that initially neither Moscow nor Brussels agreed on Ukraine signing both agreements, and as the clock was ticking, EU leaders confronted Yanukovich with a final ultimatum. After all, they "expected more" of him.
PS note how in the Reuters article it says "Both the European Union and Ukraine are keen to cut their dependency on gas giant Russia" ? This was 2 years before the EU agreed to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, while Ukraine is now left empty handed.
By now, the protests had turned to riots, and Kiev was in chaos. If you want a rare glimpse into how Western nations who control the bulk of data and have a network of people in other countries operate, look at this: In 2020, when Iraq signed key agreements with China to the dismay of Washington, Trump threatened the then Iraqi PM Abu Mahdi with "massive protests that will lead to your ouster". And surely enough, when Abu Mahdi refused to listen to Trump, riots erupted, and strangely enough, also in Baghdad 2020 just like Kiev 2014, mysterious snipers who were never identified, fired into the crowd leaving several people dead.
We may never fully know what was said to Yanukovich behind closed doors or if the threats and confronting tone was similar to what Abu Mahdi experienced. What we do know, is he stood his ground and chose the better and more prosperous agreement for Ukraine with hopes of getting the best of both worlds, since Ukraine would still be a hub for both goods and gas to and from Russia and the EU. But it would never come to that, since the same "we love democracy" klan of nations from West Europe and North America, supported his ouster which led to the official death of Ukrainian democracy, neutrality and unity. This time, they didn't just do it with words sitting in some office in their own countries, in 2014, many of them were actually in Kiev on invite of the Yanukovich government, and actually started to RALLY PROTESTERS against the 100% democratically elected government of Ukraine.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/08/viktor-yanukovych-ukraine-president-election
Can you just imagine Zarif standing in Washington and calling on Democrats to 'stand up against Trump and end his rule', or Lavrov standing in The Hague under the protection of diplomatic immunity and calling on the Dutch to overthrow their government and monarchy? That is EXACTLY what government officials from the EU and US did in Kiev 2014.
Speaking of the Netherlands, they were one of the countries directly involved in the chaos in Kiev 2014, just to get the trade deal signed. I don't think I've witnessed karma combined with such humiliation like this ever before, when their own citizens stood up to vote against that very same agreement in 2016, and The Hague had to kill democracy (again), this time in their own country, just to push ahead with the Ukraine-EU associations agreement. Mind you they are STILL talking about how they are standing up for "democracy" now in 2021, mainly regarding Belarus. You really couldn't make this stuff up :)
https://euroculturer.eu/2016/12/05/the-ignored-revolution-the-dutch-referendum-crisis/
https://twitter.com/ministerBlok/status/1358417410345365511?s=20
So, where are we today? Since Yanukovich fled the country, Poroshenko was "elected" president of "Ukraine". I say that in quotation marks because a) Ukraine as we have known it ceased to exist in 2014, and b) approximately 32% of the people did not vote in the elections, and that's even excluding the people of Crimea. Nevertheless, since Poroshenko took power in Kiev, he effectively continued the trend of ending Ukraine as we've known it, primarily by cancelling the decades old neutrality law, which prohibited the country from losing it's national identity and forming any permanent alliances with either Russia/CSTO or the EU/NATO.
https://georgianjournal.ge/usa-news/29152-petro-poroshenko-signs-law-abolishing-neutral-status.html
Russia supported the anti-EU/pro-Russia uprising in Ukraine and effectively made Crimea a part of Russia again, I can't stress it often enough because many people still do not realize it, but Ukraine as we have known it officially ceased to exist since 2014, what we are witnessing is the transition period to whatever the outcome may be. Right now the country is divided between the East and West, literally. What's worth noting, is that the EU doesn't support Ukraine for the sake of sovereignty, I think that ship sailed when their diplomats were coup motivators in Kiev 2014. Just as much as Turkey does not support Ukraine or Crimea returning to them for the sake of Ukraine. No, Brussels, Washington and Ankara all need Ukraine to regain it's control over all of Ukraine, because right now, the parts where Russia has most influence is where all the interest is. All of the country's heavy industry is in places like Donetsk, Kharkiv or Donbass. The Sevastopol naval base is in Crimea. Though back then build in Russia during the Russian/Turkish war (which is precisely why Turkey is so adamant about Ukrainian support and Crimea today btw), but effectively became Ukrainian when Khrushchev signed Crimea away to Ukraine in 1954. Ukraine just for the Western parts, is just another East-bloc nation waiting to send it's unemployed to West Europe and receive hand outs in Euros from a Union already falling apart both politically and financially, since one of their top 3 financial contributors turned their back on them last year, stopped the money flow and closed their borders for "unskilled workers" #Brexit
https://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/news/furious-cameron-vows-not-to-pay-eu-budget-bill/
Where this war will lead to precisely, no one really knows. Though it's obvious that if West-Ukraine can not even regain control of East-Ukraine with a disputed Russian military support, they will never be able to retake Crimea with a full on Russian military presence, base and sealed off airspace. What we do know, is in regards to Washington, the same people involved in the Ukraine coup in 2014, are the exact same people in power now, even though they had to do some fascist-like censorship to silence any negativity during the elections to get there.
Which explains a lot regarding why the war in flaring up again in Ukraine, but on a somewhat irrelevant note, I'd like to close with saying that even though the conflict in that part is reemerging, the conflicts started by Trump in other parts of the world, have not been deescalated but rather continued. Makes you think huh ;)
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-biden-state-venezuela-idUSL1N2JU2EF
