Obama assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland declared in 2013 that the US had by that time spent $5 Billion on "Democracy Promotion" (i.e. political interference) in Ukraine from 1991-2013. That is prior to the Maidan Revolution in 2014.
Post-1991 Ukraine was a very divided country as can be seen on any political map. Ukranians in the east voted for pro-Russian candidates, and Ukranians in the west voted for Pro-European candidates. We came and put our thumb down on one side, with predictable results, in fact results which had been endlessly predicted by George Kennan (1991), Henry Kissinger, and John Mearsheimer on the right, and leftists like Noam Chomsky. US officials knew this would ultimately lead to war with Russia. A US congressman declared that we must send weapons to Ukraine "to fight Russia over there, instead of here." (Obama had resisted all calls to send weapons, saying it would be destabilizing, Trump actually started sending weapons to Ukraine, and Biden just continued.)
We set the bear trap and lit the fuse for a proxy war. Artillery fire directed to scare ethnic Russians out of Donbass (where 14,000 had been killed and 300,000 had fled since 2014) began accelerating. Putin had no choice, even if he had desired to wait longer.
Counter hegemonists are saying the US plan was to drive a wedge between Russia and Europe. There may be other benefits, like making Europe more dependent on US CNG, but other losses, especially to inflation. Western Europe will be the immediate loser, with energy prices going through the roof and auto making shut down (lack of Titanium).
While spending billions on Democracy Promotion in Ukraine, many in the US got hot and bothered by Russia spending $100k on Facebook ads (only half of that prior to 2017) which did not advertise candidates but randomly juxtiposed various memes (including cute puppies). My analysis has always been that this was marketing research, which would make sense, which would make sense from the amount spent and the variety of ads shown.
Double Standards.
Meanwhile, don't believe anything on the western media. In war, information is the key tool. The best evidence is that Russia has been avoiding civilian casualties and other tragedies even at cost to themselves. They need to because the want eastern Ukrainians to remain their friends in the ultimate settlement, or at least cease fire. Videos and photos are often misattributed. Anyone who claims to represent eastern Ukrainian opinion may well be some kind of western-paid visiting soldier. Ukrainians are being spurred by the west (and their stooge Zelensky) to take desperate acts, like freeing all the felons from jail (a war crime FWIW), ignoring the cost to civil order. Russia tries to free anyone who isn't ideologically committed like the Neo-Nazis. And for eastern Ukrainians, that's basically everyone. It's whoever seems to be winning. They have a long history of that.
I don't think Russia had significant influence on Trump getting elected (that was primarily screw-ups by HRC) but, there is a curious virtual parallel in that Trump's election (supposedly aided by Russia) led to the Jan 6 insurrection, a sort of mini (but unsuccessful) version of the Maidan Revolution, i.e. it looked like "Blowback," or at least a little taste of what we've been doing elsewhere for 80 years. Anyway, it's a tiny illustration of what meddling in the political affairs of other countries can do.
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