the news

i have been watching a lot of morning news shows, or rather morning digest ala 'good morning america', mostly because my body decided it wants to be awake in both hemispheres. the channel one news magazine is slightly different from what you'd expect. it is more of a DYI meets martha stewart meets BBB. it features short little segments on how to organize your nuts adn bolts drawer; how to sew your own trendy coat. it has reporting on some poorly functional bureaucrat in a tiny village in siberia who is failing to respond to some grievances put forth by the tenants, it then offers crafty 'expert' advise (actually titled expert in whatever household goods, but likely just a chief janitor offering his opinion) on how to go about getting your complaints addressed. it teaches proper driving by showing a segment of some police camera recording traffic violators. the consumer reporter teaches you how to buy best quality cottage cheese and how to spot overpriced sausages (did you know that you can tell how thick a lemon's skin is by the stem attachment little button?! did you know that if you stuff your shoes wiht newspaper, you can keep your feet warm?) there is a daily horoscope, there is a new diet and trend part. all of this repeats about hourly, interrupted by actual news segment about every 10min. the actual news. did you know there is a war going on? the fighting in Eastern ukraine has not been on the news. people have forgotten about it. the fighting, however, continues. the separatist forces continue to assert their rule, the authority and sovereignty. the DNR and LNR (that's Donersk national republic and luhansk national republic) continue to exist and hold fort. the fighting has recently escalated, when the ukrainian forces began shelling, some of it along civilian areas, in order to secure the donetsk airport. then, a bus was blown up, evidently by artillery fire. listening to the russian news, all of this is coming from ukrainian national force, the army, which by using artillery and long-distance missiles, is harming civilian sites. remember, this is skewed and russian perspective. it is very possible that it is correct, however, it is skewed. it shows poor separatists as trying to preserve their little regions' independence in light of angry, violent, almost fascist ukrainian nationalists, who are just so evil they'd rather shell civilians than engage in open adn fair combat with the separatists. again, not sure whether this is correct. what is interesting though is that russia, which is known internationally to be backing separatist forces, not just with military force but also with man-power, is not saying anything, anything! along those lines. whatever fighting is going on between the separatist and ukrainian forces, whoever is at fault or responsible for civilian deaths, the blown up bus, there is zero mention of russian involvement. none. every conversation, though, throughout the city involves ukraine. people on the street are talking about the fighting, are talking about the two regions wanting their independence and evil ukraine not letting them have it. ukraine is blamed for being nationalist and fascist, for being responsible, solely responsible, for all the violence. russia's involvement is not mentioned. at all. the guy who drove me to the airport spent the whole time talking (more on taht later) adn of course we got to discuss ukraine. he supported the region's independence from ukraine adn i asked him if russia would ever just take them in. "oh no, we dont want them." so this becomes even more confusing to me: initially the whole separation came about as a result of the february uprising. people revolted against an oligarch, who coming from eastern ukraine supported russia adn russian ties, whereas the rest of the country, the people, wanted ties to the european union. this resulted in violence and the oligarch, the president, was overturned. but the anger resulted in some harsh sanctions against anything pro-russian, which unfortunately affecting the currently fighting regions. they felt slighted, oppressed even, and started fighting asserting their separation. this has been going on for a while, although the western media, or rather american media, has stopped caring or covering anything along ukrainian lines. and the fighting continues. ukrainian government has made serious concessions, basically taking back all the scary things that made the region want to separate in the first place, allowing them a certain degree of freedom for staying as part of the country. but i guess that's not enough. what's confusing, yes, sorry i'm getting to my point, is that if separatists want to be closer to russia and russia doesnt want them, what are they thinking?! it's like Minnesota declaring independence, all by itself. the tour-guide who took us around the kremlin, touched upon the fighting as well. her opinion was that eastern ukraine should belong to russia, because centuries ago catherine the great conquered it as part of her path down to crimea to defeat the turks. logical, yes, but also, by this particular logic, india should be returned to england because, you know, it once controlled it. or poland should just permanently become part of germany because it controlled it several times and mostly, conquered it on its way somewhere else. this logic i do not understand. in the mean time, fighting continues and i'll have to hunt for some news sources.