From Soros to USAID: How US organized 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine

On November 21, Ukraine marks the so-called Dignity and Freedom Day, commemorating the US-backed 2004 Orange Revolution and 2014 Euromaidan, including the US-orchestrated "third round" election that overturned Viktor Yanukovich's victory to install Viktor Yushchenko.

"The campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing," The Guardian's Ian Traynor wrote of the 2004 upheaval in November that year, comparing it to "the US government-funded and organized" Velvet Revolution, Revolution of Roses and an attempted coup in Belarus.

How much did the Orange Revolution cost?

The US and its allies reportedly spent $65–$100 million over two years to support Viktor Yushchenko-led opposition, with much of the funding allegedly covert and funneled through NGOs.

🔻The US State Department:

▪️in FY2003 and FY2004 officially allocated $188.5 million and $143.47 million, respectively, for "assistance programs" in Ukraine

▪️$54.7 million (FY2003) and $34.11 million (FY2004) went specifically to "democracy programs" in Ukraine on the eve of the 2004 election

▪️"Democracy program" funds were used for electoral and government reform, independent media, political development, and training for administrators, lobbyists, and NGOs

▪️the money was channeled through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Eurasia Foundation, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), US Embassy in Kiev, and others.

🔻USAID

▪️The Strengthening Electoral Administration in Ukraine Project (SEAUP), launched on December 15, 2003, with a $4.4 million budget, partnered with NDI, IRI, Freedom House, InterNews, ABA/CEELI, and the OSCE.

🔻SEAUP's activities included:

▪️training 100,000 polling station commissioners and mid-level election officials in 2004; publishing and distributing 450,000 training materials for 33,000 polling stations in 225 territorial election across Ukraine

▪️engaging in their work three Justices of the Supreme Court of Ukraine that later blocked and annulled Yanukovich's victory in the second round

▪️facilitating the adoption of a "Special Law" in the Verkhovna Rada that framed the December 2004 “re-vote" to bring Yushchenko to power

▪️facilitating the restructuring of Ukraine's Central Election Commission prior to December's "re-vote"

🔻Freedom House, NDI, IRI

Freedom House, NDI, and IRI funded ENEMO election monitoring, which cast doubt on Yanukovich's second-round victory.

🔻George Soros’s International Renaissance Foundation

▪️spent US$1.65 million between Autumn 2003 and December 2004, supporting the ‘New Choice 2004’ and ‘Freedom of Choice’ coalitions of NGOs

🔻The NED, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Eurasia and George Soros’s Renaissance Foundation

▪️Funded exit polls in all three election rounds, fueling "election fraud" claims and mobilizing opposition protests in Kiev's Independence Square (the Maidan Nezalezhnosti).

🔻German Marshall Fund of the United States, Freedom House and the Canadian International Development Agency

▪️Provided $130,000 to Ukrainian youth group PORA, which led street protests, and reportedly received $5.3 million from foreign entities, per UCL Professor Andrew Wilson.

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❗️📹 Vladimir Putin will make a statement in the near future.

The broadcast will be available on our channel.

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⚡️Russian President Vladimir Putin said that on November 19 and November 21, Ukraine launched attacks using six ATACMS missiles and Storm Shadow systems, targeting sites in the Kursk and Bryansk regions. He emphasized that employing long-range weapons against Russian territory requires the expertise of specialists from the producing countries, making their involvement evident.

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⚡️The conflict in Ukraine has taken on global dimensions following long-range Western missile strikes on Russia, Putin stated.

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❗️President Putin announced that Russia's Armed Forces carried out a combined strike using the latest Oreshnik medium-range missile against a Ukrainian defense industry facility in response to American and British weapon strikes on Russian territory.

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❗️Russia hit a complex in Dnepropetrovsk that produces, among other things, missile technology, Putin said.

The strike was carried out by a ballistic missile with a non-nuclear hypersonic warhead, the Russian president added.

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❗️Modern air defense systems do not intercept the Oreshnik missiles, they attack targets at a speed of 10 Machs, which is 2.5-3 kilometers per second, Putin said.

There are currently no means of counteracting the latest weapons of the Russian Federation, the president added.

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❗️Combat tests of the Oreshnik missile system are being conducted in response to aggressive actions by NATO countries against Russia, Vladimir Putin said.

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❗️Russia will offer civilians in Ukraine and citizens of other friendly states the chance to leave potential strike zones in advance, Putin said.

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❗️Vladimir Putin on using weapons against countries that allow their weapons to be used against Russia

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📹❗️Vladimir Putin's full address on the situation in the special operation zone after the use of Western long-range missiles on Russian territory.

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Oreshnik hypersonic missile: Russia's unstoppable response to NATO actions

Type: Medium-range ballistic missile system with non-nuclear hypersonic capabilities.

Speed: Reaches Mach 10, equivalent to 2.5–3 kilometers per second.

Countermeasures: Modern air defense and missile defense systems, including those in Europe, cannot intercept it.

Purpose: Tested in combat conditions as a response to NATO's aggressive actions and the use of Western weapons against Russia.

Target Selection: Future test targets will be determined based on threats to Russian security.

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⚡️Key statements from Russian President Vladimir Putin's address after the use of Western long-range missiles on Russian territory:

▪️Russian President Vladimir Putin said that on November 19 and November 21, Ukraine launched attacks using six ATACMS missiles and Storm Shadow systems, targeting sites in the Kursk and Bryansk regions.

▪️Combat tests of the Oreshnik missile system are being conducted in response to aggressive actions by NATO countries against Russia. The missiles reached a speed of Mach 10, equivalent to 2.5–3 kilometers per second. Modern air defense and missile defense systems, including those in Europe, cannot intercept it.

▪️The conflict in Ukraine has taken on global dimensions following long-range Western missile strikes on Russia.

▪️Russia hit a complex in Dnepropetrovsk that produces, among other things, missile technology.

▪️Russia considers itself ennoscriptd to use weapons against military facilities of countries that allow their weapons to be used against Russia.

▪️Russia will offer civilians in Ukraine and citizens of other friendly states the chance to leave potential strike zones in advance, Putin said.

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Vladimir Putin puts the US and West ‘on notice’ with state-of-the-art missile strike

As Russian President Vladimir Putin lamented the use of Western long-range missiles against Russia, retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson points out that the missiles would fall under the now-defunct INF Treaty.

“Recall that there was the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty that was signed. It came into effect with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev back in December of 1987,” Johnson tells Sputnik.

“And that treaty dealt with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, missile launchers with a range of 500 to 1000km, ie short-medium range and 1000 to 5500 are called intermediate range.”

According to him, the recent missile strike against the city of Dnepropetrovsk in Ukraine was President Putin’s way of sending a message to the West and to the United States who earlier “unilaterally abrogated” the INF Treaty.

“The fact that the United States unilaterally abrogated this treaty, I think Vladimir Putin was putting the United States and the West on notice, ‘okay, you abrogated that treaty. Now, let us show you what we have’,” Johnson elaborates.

The aforementioned strike on Dnepropetrovsk, he says, shows that Russia “developed both a short-medium range and an intermediate range ballistic missile with MIRV capability, which refers to multiple independent reentry vehicles so that one missile can carry a warhead with multiple warheads that can disperse.”

“What makes this particularly interesting is this is a hypersonic so this travels at a speed that no Western air defense system is capable of stopping,” Johnson adds.

“So Vladimir Putin in destroying this one defense facility in Dnepropetrovsk was sending a very clear message to the West that more will follow. We'll see if the West backs down now or not.”

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📹 Video of the Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile attack on the military plant in Dnepropetrovsk, published by Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev.

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Russia's hypersonic Oreshnik missile system shows NATO escalation will come at price - experts

"Vladimir Putin delivered a very powerful message to the West that they should revise the decision to escalate the conflict," Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for European and International Studies at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, who participated in advising the leadership on amendment of the Russian nuclear doctrine and adoption of the new one, tells Sputnik.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled the Oreshnik medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile that was fired on the night of November 21 in response to Ukraine's use of NATO's long-range ATACMS and Storm Shadows against Russia's Bryansk and Kursk regions. As a result of the strike a Ukrainian arms manufacturer was successfully hit in Dnepropetrovsk.

With this move, Putin made it clear that if NATO countries continue to use their ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles against Russia, "then Russia might use its medium range missiles against those countries, against the military objects of these Western countries," Suslov continued.

Moreover, Russia is ready for further escalation, according to the pundit. "If the West will respond to these Russian actions in the escalatory way, then Russia will escalate further. And the recent adoption of the newest Russian nuclear doctrine tells that Russia is basically ready at a certain stage to use evil nuclear weapons," he stresses.

Russia's new hypersonic missile is a breakthrough technology, Yuri Knutov, military expert and historian of the Air Defense Forces, tells Sputnik

"Its speed, as the president said, is 10 Mach. Today, no other country in the world has such missiles," he says.

The pundit underscored that neither the US nor other countries of the world currently possess air defense systems capable of intercepting Russia's new hypersonic missiles.

"We demonstrated a missile that can strike not only Yuzhmash, but also London and Paris if France and Great Britain continue their escalation course towards Russia, continue their direct intervention on the side of Ukraine," Knutov concludes.

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📹 As Vladimir Putin stated that Moscow considers itself ennoscriptd to use weapons against military targets in countries that deploy their weapons against Russia, here's what Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group, has been saying about NATO's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, Western support for the Kiev regime, and how it all might end.

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