"Consensus" among the EU and US (the IMF is just an extension of the former two, with heavy emphasis on the US) was shown in your links, but that doesn't mean the impetus didn't come from the US. Note that the Hunter Biden situation starts in April 2014, and the information you're providing is already mid-2015.
My problem is that I have spent the last 27 years interacting with that part of the world. I know how the former Soviet Union works. No one - and I mean no one - pays money for "name recognition". That's something US investment groups might do, but not Russian or Ukrainian groups. Baring Vostok (US-created fund) put the cosmonaut Titov on their board, but it didn't help them a bit when Michael Calvey was arrested on bullshit charges. He did tons to try to change the culture and encourage Western investment and was repaid for his enthusiasm with an ankle bracelet and house arrest.
In the past weeks, I've asked friends, colleagues and clients informally if they think Burisma paid just for "name recognition" or if they think it was for protection. These are not taxi drivers and discontented conspiracy nuts, but sophisticated actors. Every last person is convinced that no company like Burisma would have kept paying if they didn't get actual protection.
Finally, allow me to disabuse you of one error: you state that the EU and US couldn't "decide who the replacement was going to be". Perhaps that's true with respect to the EU, but it's patently false with respect to the US. Iraq's government has told the US that its troops need to leave and yet we remain, because we tell them what the fuck to do. The same holds for Ukraine. Let's not forget the "fuck the EU" phone call from Victoria Nuland to the Estonian prime minister. We fucking tell them what to do and they know it. Either that or they decide to align themselves with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, etc. If they take our money and assistance they ask "how high" when we tell them to jump. Because we're the superpower and they're not. Joe Biden knows that, Pyotr Poroshenko knows that, Zelensky knows it, the Iraqis know it, and so does everyone the fuck else.
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*