Talking politics

This post is actually inspired by a lawyer husband of a colleague. I am no expert in politics, but he asked, so I figured the least i can do is put in my two cents. I'm talking about the situation in Ukraine. It has died down on the news a bit as it is no longer the novelty, but the fighting in its Eastern region remains. A bit of a historical background: Eastern Ukraine is a mining region. It is the industrial part full of coal and other mining minerals (I'd hate to embarrass myself and call it simply 'ore'). And because mining is hard work, dangerous, and pays well (well, better) this region has attracted people from other parts of what used to be the Soviet Union. This means that some people, not all, have not been originally from there, spoke Russian and not Ukrainian, and felt more ties with the Big Brother. This is not to say that Eastern Ukrainians are 'homeless', quite the opposite, many of them have lived there for decades, have settled there as their home (and even going back to the Russian Empire), but its proximity and its industrial strength do attract folks that well, are not farmers and are less tied to the land. Coupled with fear of complete Ukrainianization, this might stir some sentiment. Let me come back to this. This all started over the EU. Actually, this probably all started after people realized that Yanukovich is really a crook (I mean, this was known, but not the extent of it) and enjoys ruling as if he's solely in charge. So the EU commission was holding talks to possibly offer Ukraine EU membership, after numerous reforms and lots of clean up, but at least to consider is already tremendous. This is what people wanted and the President promised that they would proceed with talks. Only to then completely ignore the promise and people's desire and completely halt back (because proceeding with joining the EU would anger Russia, and I will come back to this as well). So people went to the streets. Quietly and peacefully they built the Maidan (Maidan Nezalezhnosti, which in Ukrainian means Independence square, is the main square of Kiev, the capital). People wouldn't disband, they demanded referendums, then presidential re-election, and the president got sick of this and started using force to attempt to forcefully take the people down. This is where I have to make a disclaimer: there are many news sources and the media and the reports that one hears or sees about Ukraine are all very conflicting, especially when one compares Russian against Ukrainian and international sources, so what I'm presenting may not be all correct, but this is what I gather. The clashes with authorities and the police got more and more violent, finally reaching full blown fighting in the streets (feel free to peruse YouTube) and the president finally just ran away (no literally, fled in a helicopter to Russia). His mansion was exposed and turns out he indeed stole a shit ton of money. Where am I going with this? Well, the whole power revolution, then led to a referendum in Crimea. The referendum, however, was preceded by this somewhat silent military take over. This is clue number one: the claim is that Crimeans want to be part of Russia. This is partially motivated by the fact that Crimeans are a diverse group, but largely Russian. This is partially motivated by the fact that in light of violence on Maidan, other sections, and i mean Ukrainian Nationalist sections, also made their presence known and the backlash of nationalism and anti-Russian-ness (because that's what the president used to be) made people scared. Additionally, Ukraine, economically, is not solid, and after years of corruption, has made little progress, so the temptation of economic stability added a lot of fuel to this whole separation. A lot. And I think this fuel is what then fired the other Eastern Ukrainian regions. The promise of better wages and some stability and protection of Big Brother (here, I mean Putin) as well as fear that the crazy Ukrainian nationalists will kill the entire Russian speaking population mobilized some folk. The problem is, it is unclear how much of the civilian Easter Ukrainian population actually wants this. Yes, the news reports from Russia continue to show simple eastern Ukrainian citizens 'just defending their home', but it is hard to understand from what the simple ukrainian citizens defending themselves and their families. Additionally, I'm not sure where a simple citizen can suddenly acquire anti-tank weapons and missile launching equipment. I dont have that in my backyard. Russia swears up and down that they are not involved, but the simple citizens, when interviewed, seem to be from somewhere else (I am referring to allegations here that the majority of eastern Ukrainian fighters are Chechen hires) and the fact that coffins of dead eastern Ukrainian simple citizens for some reason end up crossing the border into Russia, makes it even more suspicious. It remains unclear if Russia is involved. But why would it be? Russia certainly has plenty of gas, coal, and whatever else, so it obviously doesnt need the Ukrainian resources and acquiring them will unlikely make a difference. Likely, Russian interests lie less with actual territory but the idea of Russian influence and maintaining Ukraine in its zone of influence, rather than losing it to the EU (the gas line to Europe does run through Ukraine). The region has less significance than Crimea, which is coveted for its access to sea, but still much power can be gained from de-powering Ukrainian government. And the question of eastern Ukraine wanting its independence is also confusing to me. Why would a tiny little portion of the country seek sovereignty? Is it really plausible that eastern Ukrainians really fear disfranchisement? Yes, the threat of Ukrainian language as the national language is scary if you're predominantly Russian speaking, but I think, it's also valid. Additionally, no one is going to yell at you for speaking Russian and not Ukrainian (trust me, I get away with speaking as much Russian and not Ukrainian as I can, since i'm embarrassed about my Ukrainian accent). Large cities, the capital, and especially the eastern regions remain and will remain russian-speaking, and that's fine. But national documents should be signed in Ukrainian. Maybe the fear of nationalist movement is really strong, but it seems that the main motivation of this revolt is financially driven: Russia promises higher standard of living, higher wages, and higher social security. And it remains unclear how many of the actual eastern Ukrainians are motivated by this to shoot down military helicopters of their own (ukrainian) country with their meager home missile-launchers they have in their garage.