how? same way libya was bombed into oblivion. same way europe and the us can "legally" send guns to extremists in syria, that decapitate civilians, christians, and basically anyone who disagrees with the destabilization efforts. same way france can constantly do political coups in african countries without anyone caring.

heavy german support of the opposition, eu sanctions of the country(i'm not sure how legal this really is) certainly helped as well.

you call it backdoor. i call it coup. and if we're still alive in 50 years, and didn't bomb ourselves into oblivion given the course we're taking right now, we can probably read about these coups in controversial sections of wikipedia or wikileaks.

watch ukraine get split up like so many other countries in the recent past.

it's not about which party is more powerful. it's about which party wins the media war. if we had respected their sovereignty in any manner we would have let them play out their conflicts internally, but we didn't. we completely supported the opposition.