> And the catalyst there was us backing a coup that overthrew a [democratically elected] Russian leaning President, sending the largely ethnic Russian regions (including Crimea and Donbas) into outright rebellion, starting the exact civil war Burns had predicted.

The catalyst was shooting of peaceful protesters that killed over 100 people, and the president fleeing as soon as he realized that he had lost the support even among his own party and would be facing criminal charges. You mention that Yanukovych was a democratically elected president, but you conventiently fail to mention that he was removed from office by the parliament with unanimous 328-vs-0 votes.

And there was no civil war. It was entirely manufactured by Russian military and special services from the start. From a judgement by the European Court of Human rights:

The Court held, on the basis of the vast body of evidence before it, that Russia had effective control over all areas in the hands of separatists from 11 May 2014 on account of its military presence in eastern Ukraine and the decisive degree of influence it enjoyed over these areas as a result of its military, political and economic support to the “DPR” and the “LPR”. In particular, the Court found it established beyond any reasonable doubt that there had been Russian military personnel present in an active capacity in Donbass from April 2014 and that there had been a large-scale deployment of Russian troops from, at the very latest, August 2014. It further found that the respondent State had a significant influence on the separatists’ military strategy. Several prominent separatists in command positions were senior members of the Russian military acting under Russian instructions, including the person who had had formal overall command of the armed forces of the “DPR” and the “LPR”. Further, Russia had provided weapons and other military equipment to separatists on a significant scale (including the Buk-missile used to shoot down flight MH17). Russia had carried out artillery attacks upon requests from the separatists and provided other military support. There was also clear evidence of political support, including at international level, being provided to the “DPR” and the “LPR” and the Russian Federation had played a significant role in their financing enabling their economic survival.

By the time of the 11 May 2014 “referendums”, the separatist operation as a whole had been managed and coordinated by the Russian Federation. The threshold for establishing Russian jurisdiction in respect of allegations concerning events which took place within these areas after 11 May 2014 had therefore been passed. That finding meant that the acts and omissions of the separatists were automatically attributable to the Russian Federation. /---/ In the absence of any evidence demonstrating that the dependence of the entities on Russia had decreased since 2014, the jurisdiction of the respondent State continued as at the date of the hearing on 26 January 2022.

The Russian commander mentioned here, Igor Girkin, an operative of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and hero of radical Russian nationalists, has boasted in public how without his actions in Sloviansk[1], the protests in Eastern Ukraine would've fizzled out after a few arrests or fines to troublemakers - instead of exploding into a large war.

If you get your facts straight, the story changes completely.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sloviansk