So, just looking over what happened on Wikipedia, it looks like there were violent protests over the leader not joining the EU. A majority of parliament removed him after a lot of chaos. That decision feels understandable given the circumstance. Parliament is elected, which feels like a more democratic decision than one guy's choice even if you or I disagree. Is there more context I'm missing that would suggest it was a straight up coup?
They removed him immediately after the security forces retreated and the whole government fled the capital, that's paperwork at that point. It's not about whether the legislature can do it - legislatures very often make these kinds of decisions during or after the process of getting physically run out of their chairs by armed men. And that's generally what a coup entails.
This is Wikipedia we're talking about, but it's worth mentioning that the right wing spearhead of the riot viewed it as an insurgency, as was mentioned incidentally in articles like this one:
It's also worth noting that the event that escalated the protests and led to the government fleeing was a massacre of civilians which was blamed on the police and the government. The evidence seems to indicate that this was a false-flag attack since the civilians were killed by snipers that were in a building that was occupied by the ultra right wing parties involved in the protesters. For an in-depth discussion on the matter I would recommend this article. The author is a Ukrainian political scientist.
So, just looking over what happened on Wikipedia, it looks like there were violent protests over the leader not joining the EU. A majority of parliament removed him after a lot of chaos. That decision feels understandable given the circumstance. Parliament is elected, which feels like a more democratic decision than one guy's choice even if you or I disagree. Is there more context I'm missing that would suggest it was a straight up coup?
They removed him immediately after the security forces retreated and the whole government fled the capital, that's paperwork at that point. It's not about whether the legislature can do it - legislatures very often make these kinds of decisions during or after the process of getting physically run out of their chairs by armed men. And that's generally what a coup entails.
This is Wikipedia we're talking about, but it's worth mentioning that the right wing spearhead of the riot viewed it as an insurgency, as was mentioned incidentally in articles like this one:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/zmjjey/what-the-hell-are-ukrainian-fascists-doing-in-the-hong-kong-protests
It's also worth noting that the event that escalated the protests and led to the government fleeing was a massacre of civilians which was blamed on the police and the government. The evidence seems to indicate that this was a false-flag attack since the civilians were killed by snipers that were in a building that was occupied by the ultra right wing parties involved in the protesters. For an in-depth discussion on the matter I would recommend this article. The author is a Ukrainian political scientist.