William Boardman, in an in-depth dissecting of murder by mob in Odessa, makes the cogent point that there are at least nine factions in Ukraine.
Both sides” is meaningless – worse than meaningless, it conceals meaning when applied to Ukraine, where there are, at a minimum, nine identifiable “sides” or factions, often overlapping:
- Ukrainians who want a non-aligned, free, independent Ukraine;
- Ukrainians who want a western-aligned but independent Ukraine;
- Ukrainians who want an anti-Russian Ukraine in NATO;
- Americans (and some of their allies) who have been working for decades to use Ukraine to threaten Russia;
- Ukrainians who want a Russian-dominated Ukraine (for example, the elected government that was overthrown in February);
- Ukrainians who want a federal Ukraine (similar to U.S.) in which dominant ethnic groups have significant independence;
- Ukrainians who want one or more independent states established within what is now Ukraine (i.e., Republic of Donetsk);
- Ukrainians who want to be part of Russia (i.e., Crimea);
- Russians who want one or more of these options, but mostly want the U.S./west to end their decades of threatening and leave Ukraine as much in Russia’s sphere of influence as Mexico is in America’s.
Our mainstream media mostly pretends there are only two sides, US vs. Russia with Ukraine as the battleground, weeping crocodile tears about the coming possibility of civil war which, by their blinders-on reporting, they are making almost inevitable.