East Ukraine: it’s mostly Russian imperialism, not democratic protest
On the weekend of 5-6 April pro-Russian crowds staged demonstrations in some cities of eastern Ukraine, and seized public buildings. In Donetsk the demonstrators echoed events in Crimea by saying that they were constituting a new regional government and would organise a referendum on transferring Donetsk to Russia. Are these justified protests by Ukraine’s Russian minority, strongest in the east, against Ukrainian chauvinist policies from the new government in Kiev? Or are they operations fomented by the Russian government, using Russians crossing the border to join the protests, and the east...