Ukraine crisis: Rebels 'retreating' in Sloviansk

[bemildred]

7. NEW - Ukraine needs a diplomatic, not military, solution

If you want to know what I think, this is what I think, although this fellow says it better than I would.

Brush aside both the Kremlin and Kiev propaganda machines: In a de-facto state of Cold War, both of them are respectively biased and non-objective. The Russian one has a single task now - to mobilize Russian public opinion in support of Kremlin's Ukrainian policy. That's what journalists are paid for, and that's how they earn their wages. Kiev’s mass-media are a distorted mirroring replica today, with one difference: The events they cover are happening in Ukraine, NOT Russia. Therefore, every word they drop has much more of direct implication on what happens on the ground.

One of the most horrible mistakes the regime in Kiev (supported by Ukrainian mass media) is doing now is introducing into the public psyche two opposing and confronting cliches: "pro-Russian separatists = terrorists," and "pro-Ukrainian activists" ( meaning "kind of the right guys&quot .

What would it mean in a country like Ukraine?

Let's look at facts, not cliches. As of 2013, roughly 20 percent of the Ukrainian population (a total of 45 million people at the time) declared themselves ethnically Russian - that gives us roughly 9 million people. After centuries of living in the same country (first the Russian Empire, then the USSR) many more are an ethnically-mixed Ukrainian-Russian "blend," with varying self-identification choices, which brings the so-called "Russian or pro-Russian" population to unknown dimensions.

After Crimea's departure, the total population of Ukraine supposedly dropped to 43 million - still leaving at least around 8 million ethnic Russians in mainland Ukraine.

http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/34820/