Still, US anti-Russian actions continued. Carpenter wrote: “The Obama administration’s shockingly arrogant meddling in Ukraine’s internal political affairs in 2013 and 2014 to help demonstrators overthrow Ukraine’s elected pro-Russian president was the single most brazen provocation.” That meddling, he concluded, led to Moscow’s seizing and annexing Crimea in February 2014 – “and a new cold war was underway with a vengeance.”