Why was this answer deleted as "pro-Russian propaganda"?

Question

The following answer to this question was deleted by moderators as "pro-Russian propaganda". Following the SE guidelines, I post it here for discussion, before appealing the moderators' decision:

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In Ukraine, one claim used by Russia to justify its invasion is that the current government is a "puppet regime", that is, the elections by which it was chosen were not valid and do not represent the will of the people.

As @o.m. state in their answer to the question cited in the OP, there are international bodies, whose opinion is usually relied upon, when considering whether elections are valid or not. The problem with Ukraine is somewhat different and I hope that the timeline below elucidates it:

• The last disputed elections in Ukraine were held in 2004, where Russian-supported Viktor Yanukovych was declared the winner over Viktor Yushchenko. The results of the election were not recognized internationally and there were massive demonstrations in Ukraine, which led to Yushchenko being declared the winner and thus becoming president. This is what is referred to as the Orange revolution. (Which is one of the events in the trend referred to as Colour revolution.)
• The Ukrainian presidential election of 2010 was mainly fought between the same two candidates and this time won by Viktor Yanukovych. The election was widely recognized as valid.
• Thus, the Euromaidan revolution of 2014 overturned the legitimately elected president (I stress legitimately elected - whether he was still legitimate at the moment of revolution is a matter of dispute between Russia and the West.) This revolution was followed by Russian takeover of Crimea and the rebellion in the Ukrainian provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk.
• Petro Poroshenko won the post-revolution snap election in 2014. The election was recognized internationally, but the voters in Crimea and the self-proclaimed republics obviously could not participate.
• Volodymyr Zelenskyy beat Poroshenko in 2019 presidential election, also recognized internationally, although the areas not under control of the Ukrainian government could not participate.

Thus, the potential issues here are with

• removing from power the legitimatly elected president in 2014 (which potentially invalidates all subsequent political process)
• holding the subsequent elections in the conditions where ethnic Russian Ukrainians were underrepresented

Remark on fact-checking: The points above contain links to Wikipedia (in English). All the information, however, can be found in the mainstream Western media - I used Wikipedia mainly to check the dates. It has not been my intention in this post to support or disprove any point of view - merely to bring to attention the main facts.

Update
To address the remarks. From the Wikipedia article on 2014 elections:

The elections were not held throughout Ukraine. During the 2014 Crimean crisis, Ukraine lost control over Crimea, which was unilaterally annexed by Russia in March 2014.[11][12][nb 1] As a result, elections were not held in Crimea.5 In the Donbas region of Ukraine, only 20% of the ballot stations were open due to threats and violence by pro-Russia separatists.[14] Of the 2,430 planned ballot stations (in Donbas), only 426 remained open for polling.[14] The self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic, controlling large parts of Donbas, had vowed to do everything possible to disrupt the elections on their territory.

From the WIkipedia article on 2019 elections:

The 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia and the occupation of parts of Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast prevented around 12% of eligible voters from participating in the election.

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Remarks
The answer was not intended as propaganda, and I deliberately limited it to verifiable facts and uncommitted statements, so as to keep it unbiased. Thus, tehre are actually two questions here:

• Why is it judged to be "propaganda"?
• Why is this "propaganda" charged to be "pro-Russian"? (It could be as well pro-Ukrainian, since the post raises awareness of the Ukrainian decade long struggle against Russian interference with their political process.)

My own interpretation is:

• The answer is written in impartial "scientific" style. For those not used to academic discourse it may appear as biased: indeed, modern political discourse and the media usually contain a great deal of positive bias, e.g., intended to support Ukraine and rally the public. The mere lack of this positive bias may be perceived as "propaganda" for the other side.
• Many political and historical events, when looked upon closer, are too complex to fit simple black&white worldview. Thus, one usually feels uneasy when confronted with new facts that seem to contradict the simple picture that the one used to have. One needs to do some thinking and further learning to reconcile one's worldview with this complexity, and to affirm one's understanding of right and wrong. Dismissing any uncomfortable facts as "propaganda" is an easy way out.

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Update
In this respect it is interesting to note what is not considered as pro-Russian propaganda. For example, question Is there any evidence of the US interfering in the 2014 Ukranian coup? (as of this writing) has been out there for a few hours, accumulated only 3 closure votes (mine among them), and no moderators rush to close it. The question reads:

In 2014, the then Ukrainian president Yanukovitch was ousted by a coup. A leaked phone call between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, was released on YouTube which seemed to suggest that the US was interfering in the Ukranian coup. Is there any other uncovered evidence or reports which point to the Ukranian Euromaidan 2014 coup to be US backed?

I think the comparison with the impartial langauge used in my post is stunning.

Answer 1

The explanation is found in the comments below the answer.

This just makes it look like Russian propaganda used to justify the invasion of Ukraine. Making claims of invalid elections after interfering with those elections looks like they are just making reasons to do whatever they want. – Joe W

The answer parrots talking-points made by the Russian propaganda to justify the invasion of the Ukraine while ignoring facts to the contrary.

The answer summarizes its talking points as follows:

• removing from power the legitimatly[sic] elected president in 2014 (which potentially invalidates all subsequent political process)
• holding the subsequent elections in the conditions where ethnic Russian Ukrainians were underrepresented

The first point is a non-sequitur. It would imply that a country which has a non-democratic revolution would never again be able to have a regular election. So it is free to invade for everyone?

The second point would be irrelevant even if it were true. When you look at the results of the results of the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election and presidential election one can see that the current Ukrainian government won with a huge landslide which would not have been affected even if every single person in the occupied region had voted against them.

These discrepancies were pointed out in the comments. Nevertheless the author refused to correct the answer to provide a more balanced view and instead claimed:

"One cannot include all the possible information to satisfy everyone. I provided links, so that anyone could learn more about the subject, and form their own opinion - cherry-picking works only on the intellectually lazy."

The author basically admitted here that they cherry-picked facts to trick "intellectually lazy" people into believing the Russian narrative. Which is pretty much the definition of propaganda.

Therefore, I had to delete the answer.

Answer 2

Thing is, Yanukovich was the elected president. He was overthrown in a people power revolution, after his goons killed a bunch of protesters. No sympathy for him on my end, but those are the facts.

It should be possible to answer this about 2014, which this answer substantially does, without even mentioning the 2019 election. The fact that Crimeans could not vote, apparently also claimed in a previous version, can also be cited as a part of the Russian narrative, and noted. While equally noting that those same excluded people were in an area that had seceded so could hardly be expected to vote normally.

I.e. it should be possible to clean up Roger's answer and not rate it as propaganda. Which it doesn't seem to be. It took hours for us to getting around to deleting another answer that started out by claiming that Ukraine had no historical basis in fact. This answer does not strike me as of that type.

I would add that a question asking "what's Trump's claim to the stolen election?" would necessarily list the claims. And, from past cases here, I doubt all answers would spend extra time assiduously debunking those claims. That's what comments and downvotes can help with, if the answer seems overly pro-grievances. And, well, a delete too, as a last resort, preferably done by voting.

Answer 3

Addressing the moderator - Your main issue seems to be with the question itself:

"What is the basis for Russia's claim that the Ukrainian government is illegitimate and that the presidential elections were supposedly invalid/stolen?"

If a naive person answers this as asked, you will inevitably say they are writing a one-sided answer favoring Russia.

How would a moderator edit this question in order that a straight answer satisfies your conditions of neutrality?

Also, what text could you add to the answer that would make it acceptable?

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I should say that despite many comments below and at another answer, I don't really see much progress on these points. The only specific data mentioned is that Zelensky won by 73% in the second round. Note, however, that Zelensky won by that margin over the post-2014 incumbent. It may be that the original poster misleads a bit in suggesting that a few percent of the electorate being excluded by virtue of occupation were enough to matter; but at least I can find a contemporary news item to back him up. Moreover, most people would I think tend to excuse a government for not polling in occupied territory.

By contrast, the deletion of the original answer, amid demands that the "landslide" be mentioned, actually tended to make us think (or at least made me struggle to recall) whether nearly 30% of the Ukrainian population had backed a pro-Russian candidate. In which case, well, you might tend to think it could have been a voting miscount, gerrymandering, stuffing boxes etc. Yes, what I'm saying is that deleting the original answer provided a far more effective propaganda boost for Russia than anything the original poster actually said. Nobody is ever going to discredit or dispute Putin by introducing their own crackdown on fake war news.