It's one of many examples of US funding, many of which I've already cited in this very thread which you refuse to acknowledge (even to refute) unless you can find a fucking Phoenix Wright gotcha lmao.

It doesn't matter a single fucking bit why they would die without US funding, what matters is that they would, and thus they're entirely at the behest of their benefactors. It's also awfully convenient that you choose 2014 as a cutoff point for US involvement in Ukraine but you fail by that metric also. Regardless, Ukraine is thoroughly a puppet state of the US and its many crimes in the Donbas region are not a matter of debate. The ICJ has by and large rejected the atrocity propaganda lawfare of Ukraine and NATO and the probe has found evidence of genocidal intent in Donbas.