A trade deal, a flight and a peninsula
Published 6 October 2026
Reuters's April 2014 chronology begins the political crisis on 21 November 2013, when Kyiv suspended trade and association talks with the European Union and moved to revive economic ties with Moscow. Mass demonstrations followed. On 30 November, riot police attempted to disperse demonstrators, turning the protest more directly against President Viktor Yanukovych and his government. It also reported Putin agreeing to purchase $15 billion of Ukrainian debt and cut the price of Russian gas supplies by a third. European alignment, domestic policing and Russian financial support were already interacting before Crimea's seizure. (Reuters, Timeline: Ukraine crisis and Russia's stand-off with the West, 27 April 2014)
By January 2014, the chronology had moved from rallies to deaths and failed negotiation. Reuters recorded three people dying in Kyiv protests on 22 January, the EU threatening action, and talks between the opposition and Yanukovych failing. Washington threatened sanctions the next day; unrest spread into areas previously supportive of the president. In February, Reuters's then-current account said at least 77 people had been killed in clashes between protesters and police. Those numbers belong to that April 2014 timeline and its reporting cutoff. (Reuters, 27 April 2014 chronology, January-February entries)
The political sequence accelerated on 21 and 22 February 2014. Opposition leaders signed an EU-mediated agreement with Yanukovych on 21 February; the following day, parliament voted to remove him and he fled. Reuters's chronology then recorded a new government and Russia putting 150,000 troops on high alert. On 27 and 28 February, armed men seized Crimea's parliament and militia took control of two airports. This sequence separates the fall of Yanukovych from the organised seizure of strategic sites in Crimea. The dated account can establish who did what and when while leaving disputed constitutional and political descriptions attributed to those making them. (Reuters, 27 April 2014 chronology, February entries)
Reuters recorded Putin securing parliamentary approval on 1 March 2014 to use force in Ukraine as Russian troops spread across Crimea. Crimea's leadership voted on 6 March to join Russia, followed by the 16 March referendum. Putin signed laws completing the annexation on 21 March; Ukraine withdrew its troops on 24 March. The same chronology says Moscow initially denied involvement but Putin later acknowledged Russian troops had acted alongside local militia. Nor does recording the referendum's reported result establish that the annexation gained international legal recognition. (Reuters, 27 April 2014 chronology, introduction and March entries)
On Thursday, 27 March 2014, the United Nations General Assembly affirmed Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders. Resolution 68/262 received 100 votes in favour, 11 against and 58 abstentions. The Assembly treated the referendum as lacking validity for changing Crimea's status and called for non-recognition of the resulting alteration. These were votes by states on a legal and political principle. They were not a military operation to restore the peninsula. (UN General Assembly)
The crisis in eastern Ukraine developed on its own timeline after Crimea. Reuters recorded pro-Russian activists proclaiming a "Donetsk People's Republic" on 7 April 2014 and separatists taking control of Sloviansk on 12 April. Kyiv prepared troops and began operations, while the United States accused Moscow of coordinating unrest and Russia denied doing so. These are the attributed positions in the contemporary report. (Reuters, 27 April 2014 chronology, introduction and April entries)
Reuters's 21 February 2022 explainer described the separatist-held Donetsk and Luhansk areas as having broken from Ukrainian government control in 2014, with Russian support including covert military assistance, financial aid, vaccine supplies and at least 800,000 Russian passports issued to residents. It reported Ukraine's estimate of about 15,000 people killed in the conflict by that point. Both the passport count and the death estimate are dated to the explainer, and the death figure remains attributed to Ukraine rather than becoming an independent total. The same report says Russia denied being a party to the conflict. (Reuters, Explainer: What will Russian recognition of breakaway Ukraine regions mean?, 21 February 2022)
A suspended EU agreement became the backdrop to protests, political upheaval and separate territorial crises in Crimea and Donbas. On 21 November 2013, Ukraine's Cabinet suspended preparations to sign an Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreement with the EU, then expected at the Vilnius summit; EU leaders said the agreement remained available. The suspension was followed by Kyiv protests, which grew after police dispersed demonstrators on 30 November.
After deadly clashes, Yanukovych left Kyiv; on 22 February 2014 parliament voted that he was unable to fulfil his duties and set an early election. On 27 February armed men seized Crimea's parliament building; OHCHR's April report described them as unidentified and attributed to Ukrainian authorities the allegation that they were Russian forces or allied groups. A referendum followed on 16 March.
On 27 March the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/262, affirming Ukraine's territorial integrity and calling on states not to recognize a change in Crimea's status based on that referendum. Separately, armed groups seized government buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk in April. (UN press office)
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