>I'm an expat Ukrainian, for example, and what I've seen since the Maidan events last year, was an explosion of hostility from all my friends, who considered themselves Russian or of Russian heritage. Somehow the idea, that my home country could decide for itself, without constantly praising the benevolent, though kleptocratic overlords, that Kremlin considers themselves to be, was offensive to my Russian friends.

The Kremlin overlords got opportunistically into the game when new Ukraine government started assault on basic rights of Russian minority, like language. That has got angry a lot of Russians everywhere, even the ones who daydreams about Putin slipping on a banana peel. I ultimately formed my opinion when i saw (on western news sources) Ukrainian government forces (majority are volunteers from Western Ukraine - a lot of ancient hate toward East/Russia) shelling civilian cities - that clearly shown what new Kiev government thinks about the people and the region (i hate to say it, yet i'm starting to think that by taking over Crimea (i personally was really against it at the time), Putin, as a side-effect, saved people there from the fate of people in Donetsk/Luhansk).

Maidan was anti-oligarh, anti-corruption uprising which was skillfully channeled (by the regime of corrupt oligarhs to payback the debt to nationalist forces who supported them and to divert the attention from the fact that the oligarhs got even more power in Ukraine after Maidan - starting with the new Ukraine president, Poroshenko) into ethnic conflict with Russian minority assigned the role of the scape-goat.

From my experience, this sub-thread has a very high probability of veering way off topic and into a flame war territory.

1. The idea, that the basic rights of Russians and the Russian speaking minority are somehow violated in Ukraine right now is false. The only attempt by the government to do anything language-wise, was to instante Ukrainian as the only official language, meaning, that it would be the language of all the __public offices__, like the mayor's office or schools. This is the same as in the vast majority of countries. For example, there is a large Russian minority in Germany, but the official language is still German, but nobody is complaining about that, for some reason. You certainly don't see the Russian foreign ministry harassing their largest (and overpriced) energy market due to some "trivial" issues, like their minorities.

Secondly, having partaken in some local "Maidans", I can say, that I've seen as much Russians there as Ukrainians. Although the Kremlin (as well as some very dodgy parties in Ukraine) are hell-bent of framing this as an ethnic conflict, it is not.

2. I think it is wrong to think, that any war, especially such as in the East of Ukraine right now, can be fought without damaging civilan sites. The deathcount now is somewhere around 3 thousand people, most of them military personell and about 1/3 of that civilians. For comparison, the death toll of civilians only in Russia, during the second Chechen campaign was 200k people. Does that mean that the Russian government hates their citizens in Chechnya?

Furthermore, there is a lot of humanitarian effort in Ukraine, governmental and private, to help the people in that region. A lot of people have fled: some to Russia and a lot to western Ukraine and Kiev. But the reporting on that is quite thin outside of Ukraine.

That's it. Back to talking about Scotland and the UK.

man, i'll just address the most egregious BS (the rest has been many times discussed elsewhere and obviously you've chosen your facts, i - mine) :

>Furthermore, there is a lot of humanitarian effort in Ukraine, governmental and private, to help the people in that region.

Kiev government's refusal to pay pensions to old and disabled people in Donetsk/Luhansk - such a low blow. "Humanitarian effort", yep... (http://www.62.ua/news/621938 - site of Ukraine nationalists in Donetsk)

Could you explain to me, how the payment of pensions would happen practically on those territories then? How do you imagine the actual transfers to happen, who would be responsible on the occupied territory?

The website you've linked is the website of Donetsk city and not of Ukrainian nationalists. You are chosing your facts indeed.

>Could you explain to me, how the payment of pensions would happen practically on those territories then?

the way it was happening before September. If you read the story - it was just a political decision to stop paying. It happened right after the decision about "special status" and public declarations of Kiev politicians about "no money to separatists".

The payments are made from the central budgetary administration to the local administrations, where the money is distributed to eligible people.

Now, those local administrations are controled by criminal groups. If they were OK with violating the country's law and constitution, why wouldn't they be OK with skimming or even taking the pensions?

I'm not saying, that this decision is fair. Nor am I saying, that the civilians in Ukraine's east are treated fairly. But it must be clear, that the fault is solely with those idiots with machine guns and heavy weaponry spounting nonsense about "Novorossia". None of the crap the Donbass people are going through was in place, when the new government formed. It is only when the Russians sponsered criminals started enforcing their own rules the shit hit the fan.

Furthermore, the article says, that the pensions will be payed on government controlled territory. You must agree, that "paying pensions in a safe environment without any fighting" and "not paying" are different things.