CIA Played a Role in Ukraine’s 2014 Change of Government, Former Intelligence Officer John Kiriakou Claims

International Desk. November 3, 2026.

On Glenn Dyson’s podcast, a former CIA officer said that Viktor Yanukovych’s overthrow was part of a long-term US covert operation; however, he did not present any direct documents or direct evidence to support his claim.

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou has claimed that the CIA played a role in the ouster of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. According to him, the regime change in Ukraine was a covert operation organized by the Barack Obama administration, which aimed to bring the country closer to the West.

Kiriakou made this claim in a recent interview published on Professor Glenn Diesen’s YouTube channel ‘Glenn Diesen Clips’. In the interview, he said that the removal of Yanukovych from power was not the result of an isolated political situation; rather, in his view, it was the first step in a long-drawn-out ‘slow-motion cue’ or slow-motion coup.

However, Kiriakou himself has admitted that he left the CIA in 2004 and that he has no inside or direct information on Ukraine. He is mainly commenting on information published in the media. Therefore, his statement should be considered not as evidence of direct CIA involvement, but rather as the claims and political assessments of a former officer.

Former official claims CIA’s role behind government change

According to Kiriakou, the US goal was to bring Ukraine closer to the Western military and political sphere. He said that Russia had expressed its interest in joining NATO to several US presidents; in return, Moscow wanted NATO not to expand towards Russia’s borders. But NATO expansion continued and later the US position in favor of Ukraine’s membership in NATO became stronger.

Kiriakou explained that Yanukovych’s removal was the first step in this larger strategy. He claimed that Washington had assumed that Russia would not be able to take effective action to prevent this change. But subsequent events proved that calculation wrong, he commented.

In the interview, Kiriakou also spoke about the CIA’s general methods of conducting covert operations. He described such operations as influencing journalists and media outlets in a country, spreading anti-government propaganda, building relationships with political and administrative figures, gathering intelligence, and exploiting existing public discontent. However, he presented these as descriptions of the CIA’s general methods of operation; not as specific evidence of the use of each tactic in the 2014 events in Ukraine.

Ukraine crisis of 2014: What happened?

In November 2013, the government of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych withdrew from preparations to sign a key association agreement with the European Union. This led to anti-government protests in the capital Kiev, which became known as the ‘Euromaidan’ movement. The protests turned violent in February 2014. After attempts to reach a compromise between the government and the opposition failed, Yanukovych left Ukraine and the country’s parliament took steps to establish a new political system.

At the time, evidence of active US diplomatic involvement in Ukraine’s internal politics also emerged. In February 2014, a leaked phone call between Victoria Nuland, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine, was leaked. It revealed their discussions of Ukrainian opposition political leaders and their views on the formation of a potential government. The call sparked a debate about US diplomatic intervention. However, it is not in itself evidence of a CIA coup.

New York Times investigation: CIA’s close ties with Ukrainian intelligence agencies after 2014

The New York Times published an important piece of information related to Kiriakou’s statement. The investigative report titled ‘The Spy War: How the CIA Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin’ published on February 25, 2024, said that after the fall of the Yanukovych government in February 2014, Ukraine’s new intelligence chief, Valentin Nalyvaichenko, contacted local officials from the CIA and the British intelligence agency MI6. He sought their cooperation in rebuilding Ukraine’s intelligence agency and proposed a partnership between the three parties.

The report also states that over the next eight years, the CIA funded and assisted Ukraine’s intelligence infrastructure in the Russian border areas. This cooperation became important in gathering intelligence against Russia, monitoring Russian military movements, and conducting various covert operations. That is, there is information based on investigative journalism about the establishment of deep ties between the United States and the new intelligence structure in Ukraine after the change of government in 2014. However, this report also does not prove that the CIA was responsible for the operation to oust Yanukovych.

Debate over NATO expansion

In the interview, Kiriakou highlighted Russia’s interest in joining NATO and NATO’s eastward expansion as an important context for the Ukraine crisis. In 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the BBC that he did not rule out the possibility of Russia joining NATO if it was considered an equal partner. However, there is no evidence in public records that Russia had formally applied for NATO membership.

On the other hand, the declaration of NATO’s Bucharest Summit in April 2008 stated that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become NATO members. This was NATO’s official position and further clarified the Western alliance’s policy conflict with Russia’s security concerns.

On the other hand, there is public information about US diplomatic influence in the 2014 Ukraine crisis, US officials’ contacts with opposition political leaders, and the CIA’s close partnership with Ukrainian intelligence agencies after the change of government. This information raises questions about the active role of the US. But diplomatic influence, subsequent intelligence cooperation, and a direct CIA operational role in overthrowing the government—the three are not the same thing.