As for the claims that this popular opposition is "instigated" or "fomented" by Russia, the Putin regime, based on billionaire oligarchs, is hostile to any genuine popular movement in eastern Ukraine, a stronghold of the industrial working class, which might spill across the border and intensify the class struggle within Russia itself. If the Russian armed forces were eventually to intervene in eastern Ukraine, it would be to suppress such a popular movement before it could get out of control.
The imperialist powers and their stooges in Kiev regard the population of eastern Ukraine with undisguised loathing. It is worth recalling again the statement by interim president Turchynov on his website Tuesday, in which he admitted, "Apart from Russian Special Forces and terrorists, there's hundreds of thousands of innocent Ukrainian people deceived by Russian propaganda."
The military actions ordered by Kiev pose the danger of a full-scale bloodbath to crush broad sections of the eastern Ukrainian population who distrust and oppose the Kiev regime. Casualties have already been reported earlier this week in Kramatorsk and Slovyansk. On Wednesday, press reports indicated that Ukrainian soldiers opened fire on protesters in Mariupol, a city of 600,000 on the Sea of Azov, killing one person and wounding 12 more.
There were reports of Ukrainian troops balking at instructions to fire, and even fraternizing with the local population.
Such defections will only intensify the effort to mobilize ultra-right and neo-Nazi elements against the working class.
The head of the Ukrainian National Security Council, Andriy Parubiy, a leader of the anti-Semitic Svoboda party, sent out a message on Twitter saying that veterans of the coup in Kiev, many of whom were members of right-wing nationalist groups, are being mobilized to join the fight. "Reserve unit of National Guard formed from #Maidan Self-defense volunteers was sent to the front line this morning," he wrote.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).