Betty: "Yes, we are fighting on the streets and on the net - some special groups "antimaidan" and others. The new govern gave Ukraine to oligarchs. People gave their lives and giving to make them richer. Neo nazis organised detachments to suppress rebellion in the Eastern and Southern provinces. But they lost the Crimea."
I had reached out through Facebook, looking for anyone who could translate Ukrainian into English for a friend of mine who said he had a source who might send him some sensitive information. Through a friend of a friend, I met Betty (not her real name). We have been corresponding for a while now.
I want to quote her directly for the most part, editing the typos only.
I have just come from Kiev. I saw how the main square of the country looks like and its people. Very much shocking.
This was right after the main fighting - she was appalled at the brutality of the Nationalists. She explained her view of the documented divide in culture there:
You know Ukraine is roughly divided into two parts - eastern where I live and western one where people come from who took part in the rebellion. We have different mentality and outlook. We consider ourselves Russian people and very close to Russia geographically and spiritually. I respect Ukrainian traditions and culture but I was brought up on Russian literature, history and arts. And the majority of people in the east. We are different. But we live peacefully until someone introduced the scenario of dividing people and therefore the country. We faced with the nationalism - Ukraine for Ukrainians!
Svoboda. Once they said that the people who were not born in Ukraine can't be its citizens - my son and the husband were born in Russia.
This message was very obvious in the speeches of protesters on the square, even when I was last listening to them yesterday. What mood? Depressing. In a corruptive state a revolution is the tool to change one mafia for the other one. The new governors are the owners of corporations - we will be their slaves. The tension is great when nationalists tried to break into eastern provinces and established their rules. They were resisted and fought. But it concerns only ordinary people who resist. The local authorities are frightened - they have much $$ to lose.
In fact Ukraine is multinational country but Russians account about 30 per cent of the population and nationalists want to prohibit Russian Language in all walks of life!! It's not fair. By the way Poland is against nationalism in Ukraine. They suffered a lot during the World war II.
Polish Monument "If I forget, let The Sky forget about me" - engraved in stone. The monument was created on the basis of the real pictures of violence against children, killed by screwing wire to the posts to save on cartridges, by Svobda's hero Stepan Bandera. The Poles hate him, and the Nazis to this day. This is why they support Putin in this dispute, and won't recognize the new government.
This is what the people fear. Even their opponents are now bowing to them, in fear. Fear, and perhaps raw opportunism. Rich people only have loyalty to gold.
You can begin to see how the members of the former government began to be co opted. If they didn't work with the rich now in power, they stood to lose their position and their money.
I asked for clarification of Svoboda and the Nationalists, to verify what I have read.
"Among the Ukrainian rebels - mostly radical nationalists from Galicia - three provinces: Lviv , Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil south. During the Great Patriotic War, an entire division of Ukrainian volunteers of these places - it was called 'SS - Galicia' - fought on the side of the Third Reich. Today the guys from the same region - also against Russia. What is happening in Ukraine now, needs to be clarified with the help of historical examples.
"One March morning in 1942 in a village in the north of Belarus Velevschina SS troops entered. His men talked, however, not in German in Ukrainian. 201st Police Battalion commanded by the then little-known future hero of Ukraine Shukhevych. Punishers, coming immediately, got down to business. They shot both children and adults. Some were thrown alive into the pit."
Then added her own perspective:
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