QUESTION:
Hi Martin, can you please enlighten us on the damned truth. Do half of the people in Ukraine want the Eu, and the other half want Russia or, is this really a protest against government corruption or, both?
Thanks
ANSWER: Russia wants to portray this as a coup organized by the USA, Europe wants to portray this as Ukraine wanted them, and the USA media spins this as US against RUSSIA.
This began as a movement against CORRUPTION and not a Europe v Russia confrontation. The more it has played out, then this has also developed into a fight for freedom. The Russian side of Ukraine is the East and south and they speak Russian. The West speak Ukrainian so there are even two languages spoken.
The Russian side has very strong RIGHT WING elements and they are anti-gay and want 7 years in prison for a girl who gets an abortion. So there is now a religious fever being thrown into the fire.
BY ABSOLUTELY NO MEANS did this begin merely over the refusal to join Europe. The corruption in Ukraine is massive. Much of the bureaucracy is buried still in communism with no rational explanation. Under communism, the state-owned everything. Therefore, your “papers” were a form of domestic passport not good for international travel. Inside that passport you had to have your PERMANENT address assigned to you by government since you were not allowed to move. To this day, although communism collapsed and you can move, your passport must still have your “official” address. If you want to move, it will take months to get a new passport and you have to pay a bribe to get it expedited that may still be 2 months. The law forced you to return to change any document. You cannot do anything on-line.
The bureaucracy has never been reformed. There is no law saying you need an address anymore, yet nobody can change anything because it is as if there is nobody really in charge. It is a chaotic mess. The police were extorting people like the Mafia, so this began as all other protests – against corruption. Simple as that. The mainstream media is playing to the propaganda on both sides.
It appears that civil war will erupt for the younger generation want their freedom. Russia will not allow that to happen for this is a strategic former possession that was once part of Russia and Kiev was the former capital of Russia before Moscow. This is likely to fester and grow. There is no peaceful resolution.
