By William Markiewicz
A question I haven’t had an answer to yet. All I know is that the Western Ukrainians are more temperamental; before the war they and the Poles didn’t like each other very much. The Ukrainians fought for the Germans and stopped when they realised that Hitler had other things in mind than help for Ukrainian independence. As for Eastern Ukraine, I can’t get much information. They give the impression of a long uninterrupted peace and friendship with the Russian neighbour. They were culturally Russian as they spoke Russian and their common origin remains strongly in memory. They are also apparently more prosperous and industrialized than the west. As there is a great discrepancy between East and West Ukrainians, the question comes to mind: If it came to civil war in Ukraine, who is the stronger? How much will Europe/U.S. on one side and Russia on the other, hold back from the interior conflict? Will they be neutral or active like Nato was in Yugoslavia where they destroyed the Serbs? Russia’s been accused of taking part in the conflict like they did in attacking Georgia. Those accusers forget that Russian intervention was not anti-Georgia but pro-Ossetia. The Ukrainian conflict is much more serious for the big powers than the Georgian-Ossetian-Russian conflict. A very uneasy status quo could emerge; old nostalgias could emerge as the pro Westerners put the Jews into the mix.
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William Markiewicz