Even the article you cite saysL "From the outset, a shared adversary — President Vladimir Putin of Russia — brought the CIA and its Ukrainian partners together. Obsessed with “losing” Ukraine to the West, Putin had regularly interfered in Ukraine’s political system, handpicking leaders he believed would keep Ukraine within Russia’s orbit, yet each time it backfired, driving protesters into the streets."

So US aid to Ukraine was not provocation but rather assistance that Ukrainians wanted- and didn't start until after Putin was already fomenting trouble in eastern Ukraine as well has having illegally occupied Crimea