In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Barack Obama acknowledged that the United States had “brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine,” thus admitting to the highest level of democratic impropriety imaginable.

Before we consider Obama’s stunning remarks, and how the Ukrainian people sold their country for a song, let’s rewind to November 2013, when then-President Viktor Yanukovich had shocked western capitals (and, more importantly, western markets) by suspending plans for an association agreement with the European Union.