The Ukraine crisis in a nutshell, as explained to me by a physics professor who lived both in ...
... eastern and western Europe and who speaks Russian, English and German:
"Two carrots are being dangled in front of the Ukranian people: One by the EU and one by Russia. The people of eastern and western Ukraine have decided to follow different carrots. And now shots are being fired because of it. Both of what the English and Russian spoken press are promoting within Ukraine are propaganda and lies."
Sounds plausible to me.
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It makes everything into money. That's all that matters. Just money. If it's not money, it's not just not a core value, it can't be a core value.
In physics, in math, Occam's razor is golden. If you can explain the observable actions by reference to one variable, you're good.
Human psychology isn't so reductionist. If I marry, it may be because my future wife has money and I get some. In other words, I marry out of greed. Or perhaps the real reason is because the woman's hot and I marry out of lust. I get some, but it's not $. Or maybe I love her and it's an emotional, and not a wallet- or groin-driven need that's being satisfied. Perhaps it's an arranged marriage and out of a sense of family obligation and duty to culture I'm going to marry her, even though I'd rather marry a particularly large tarantula whatever its wealth.
Some in the East are pro-Russian because of rubles. They see the anti-corruption possibility and know that they won't be able to target Target any more. Or they have a meagre high-school diploma and are building Soviet-spec trucks and most of their output goes to Russia--with the fear of having the plant shut down if Russia doesn't get its way. (This would be called economic blackmail if the US did it; it's enlightened self-interest by our moral superiors if Russia does it--no bias there.) Others just see bigger pensions in their future, and their loyalties are subject to bidding and outsourcing. Money rules these folk.
Some in the East are pro-Russian because they're afraid of being a minority culture. Perhaps they're afraid of being treated as they've treated others. Perhaps they think their culture is superior. Perhaps they're afraid of having the use of Russian outlawed in public spaces and not being able to hear their first language spoken. It's like my parents when they wound up in a predominately Spanish-speaking part of Phoenix. They pretty much had contempt for the surroundings and resented not being able to use their one language wherever they went. They felt disrespected.
Some in the East are pissed off because their self-image depended on being recognized as honorable and glorious. There's a reason that in Donetsk one speaker went on and on about how wonderful the Russian (not Soviet) victory was, and that they should all drink to their Motherland, drink to Stalin (repeat several times to moderate cheers from the DNR supporters.) The idea that in parts of Ukraine *Russian* history was revised to be not good (much less bad) is abhorrent to them. Russians died for them and they'd better be grateful in perpetuity. Some in the West are the same way--they have rehabilitated some abhorrent figures that participated in an attempt to win Ukrainian independence from the forces of imperialism (lic. "USSR"
by siding with Hitler. So one idiot's speech said that Hitler liberated Ukraine, briefly. A woman from the crowd eventually marched up and grabbed the microphone away from him, and threw it down the steps of the podium--to cheers from the crowd.
Some in the East are pro-Russian because they're afraid of fascists. Even Russian media sources that question (just question) that the USSR had the right policy in WWII, that the Crimean annexation might not be a good thing, are justed "fascist." At some point "fascist" goes from being anti-Jewish and pro-some-ethnicity to just not liking Russia(ns) to be victorious and on top at all times. But it always goes back to fear at all the violence unleashed by the fascists against Russians. The death squads in the woods. Infiltrators everywhere trying to hurt Russians because that's what fascists do--they just hate Russians for their innate superiority.
Some in the East are pro-Russian at this point out of simple revenge. They kill people because they've been told that all the deaths of any Russian have been planned and intentional. It's a public service to kill fascists. Even Russian-speaking fascists of Russian ethnicity who are in charge of what amounts to the highway patrol, if they aren't sufficiently anti-Ukrainian.
Much of this is recent media from Russia. Russia has a great literature, but in the last 50 years it's be so-so, with much of the best being frowned upon. The USSR briefly was acknowledged as being a problem--purges, famines, repression. Then that thaw ended and the USSR has been rehabilitated; Stalin's not fully rehabilitated yet, but you can't say bad things about him (or bad consequences from his or Lenin's policies) in schools. At the same time, all Ukrainians that like Ukraine are bad. Russians are good--the USSR didn't win WWII, Russia did. The West is evil because it sat out the war until Russia was all but about to win it, and then the West got involved against Hitler just to keep Russia from getting all the glory. That's what I read in the '70s. That's what I read in the '00s. That's what I read now. Only in the '90s briefly, during Russia's humiliation, was there much discussion about what the West did against Hitler. Even lend-lease was mentioned.
Then there's the spin. RT may start off with acknowledging that Ukrainians die, but it's downplayed and a few days later all the fatality numbers are all Russian supporters. Ukrainian deaths disappear. Ambiguity disappears. Every Russian death is intentional. If there aren't facts to support it, they rely on 1st person narratives. In one case they quoted a candidate who reported that he'd also heard a rumor. A few lines later they said they contacted the candidate who confirmed that he'd said that--in other words, had heard the rumor--and then a paragraph later the reader was left to infer (with few alternatives) that the candidate had confirmed the truth of the rumor. You would have to read close and sceptically, or read what the candidate had said before and after that quote, to get any other understanding. Yet that's what was in the major Russian-language media sources. Note that one of the "activists" big campaigns is to stop Ukrainian--esp. Russian-language Ukrainian--station from airing their "lies." Only the Russian truth is fit to be heard. Let's raise a glass to Stalin, why don't we?
Why, just yesterday this poor miner was released in the Donbas. He'd been beaten. Because he had a "Glory to Ukraine--Glory to our heroes" tattoo. He'd had it for years, but that didn't matter. He was Right Sector because he had the tattoo. The good guys are so into hate that they tried to remove the tattoo. These same good guys have muzzled the press, who are called "fascist" and "Right Sector" because they detail crimes committed by none other than the good guys. They detained Red Cross workers delivering medicine (and confiscating it--the needs of the activists outweigh the needs of the people, because the activists are the people and so it's not really a contradiction).
Try to explain why the DNR folk wanted to remove that man's tattoo using knives and hot metal in terms of rubles. Try to explain the call to raise a glass to Stalin in terms of jobs.
