Marjorie Taylor Greene Parrots Russian Talking Point on Ukraine

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene parroted a Russian talking point with her claim that Ukraine is a country whose “government only exists because the Obama State Department helped to overthrow the previous regime.”

FactCheck.org presents the history of this Russian propaganda talking point, and explains why it is false.

Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor of international diplomacy at Columbia University, said Greene has “[swallowed] Russian propaganda hook, line, and sinker.”

“The government of Ukraine ‘exists’ because in 2014 the then-president [of Ukraine] provoked mass demonstrations against an agreement he made with Putin, demonstrations that he repeatedly over several months tried to put down with force,” Sestanovich told us via email. “When the bloodshed got too great, the parliament deposed him (members of his own party voting against him) and he fled the country. New elections were called, and a new president [Petro Poroshenko was] elected in internationally-monitored voting. When his term was up, he was voted out and a new president — Mr. Zelensky — was elected with 73% of the vote. Democracy in action, in a word. Rep. Greene’s description is preposterous and embarrassing; no one but Putin (okay, foreign minister Lavrov too) would consider it factual.”