Finian Cunningham
PressTV

The EU foreign policy chief was instrumental in lending credibility and legitimacy to what can only be described as a violent seizure of government. The criminal involvement of the American CIA and its various non-governmental incarnations in fomenting this coup is well documented. That makes Ashton a CIA collaborator.

With her demeanor of quiet diplomacy and down-to-earth style, some may see her as a fixer of diplomatic solutions. But, increasingly, it seems that the British appointed European bureaucrat is playing a more sinister role of finessing regime change on behalf of Washington and its NATO allies.

Ashton - whose official British title is "Lady Ashton" - was made a member of the House of Lords under Britain's archaic and undemocratic honors system back in 1999. She has never been elected by a popular vote, yet she has risen by political patronage to become Europe's top diplomat deciding the fate of foreign states and millions of lives.

Up to now, Ashton has enjoyed something of a benevolent image akin to a "well-meaning auntie figure". Mild-mannered and modest, she might be seen as an honest broker. For example, she is credited with helping to broker the P5+1 interim nuclear deal with Iran last November.

However, the covert involvement of Western governments in orchestrating the coup d'état in Ukraine and Ashton's de facto participation in this regime-change operation makes her much less a lady and more a cynical operator who is far from an honest broker. When the street protests sparked off in Kiev at the end of November, allegedly as a result of incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign a EU trade pact, Ashton was among the trail of top Western political figures who took it upon themselves to "mediate" in the ensuing political crisis.

John Pilger

Washington's role in the fascist putsch against an elected government in Ukraine will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore the historical record. Since 1945, dozens of governments, many of them democracies, have met a similar fate, usually with bloodshed.

Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries on earth with fewer people than Wales, yet under the reformist Sandinistas in the 1980s it was regarded in Washington as a "strategic threat". The logic was simple; if the weakest slipped the leash, setting an example, who else would try their luck?

The great game of dominance offers no immunity for even the most loyal US "ally". This is demonstrated by perhaps the least known of Washington's coups - in Australia. The story of this forgotten coup is a salutary lesson for those governments that believe a "Ukraine" or a "Chile" could never happen to them.

Australia's deference to the United States makes Britain, by comparison, seem a renegade. During the American invasion of Vietnam - which Australia had pleaded to join - an official in Canberra voiced a rare complaint to Washington that the British knew more about US objectives in that war than its antipodean comrade-in-arms. The response was swift: "We have to keep the Brits informed to keep them happy. You are with us come what may."