Finland sacrificing its neutrality to try and join NATO was a phenomenally idiotic move.
Oh you mean this Euromaidan? https://jacobinmag.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea
US officials, unhappy with the scuttled EU deal, saw a similar chance in the Maidan protests.
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It’s an overstatement to say, as some critics have charged, that Washington orchestrated the Maidan uprising. But there’s no doubt US officials backed and exploited it for their own ends.
Your source states very clearly that the US did not orchestrate the Maidan protests, and that its involvement was due to the aborted EU-deal.
Nothing in there about the Maidan government wanting to join NATO, aside from one reference to Putin’s paranoia about it :
After Putin moved to secure the Crimean naval base from NATO control
Indeed, the article referenced in this sentence says:
“Our decision on Crimea was partly due to … considerations that if we do nothing, then at some point, guided by the same principles, NATO will drag Ukraine in and they will say: ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with you.’”
So, according to your source, Crimea was not annexed in reaction to Ukraine giving up its neutrality, but in prevision of it.
Nuland is literally on tape selecting the government after the coup, but you do you bud.