Well, then count me among the thoroughly confused. I’ve listened quite a lot to Stephen F. Cohen on the John Batchelor show. He’s considered one of the foremost experts on Russia, for whatever that’s worth. He’s been on the Batchelor show pretty regularly for upwards of 3 years. I don’t consider him an “apologist” for Russia/Putin (as many do) but he *does* try to get inside their heads to try to understand “where they’re coming from” to use a hackneyed phrase..
From what I gather, he claims the Russia-bordering areas of Ukraine (Donetsk, Donbass) are highly industrialized and closely connected to Russia from the cultural standpoint. He claims people there primarily associate with Russia and generally consider themselves Russian. He claims the Western part of Ukraine is much more agricultural, and while it certainly has value due to its food production, it is backwards and rural in many ways, closer to Europe, and it was in this section of the country where popular sentiment wanted to join Europe and thereby modernize. This dichotomy forms the basis for the divisions in Ukraine.
Those are my impressions from listening to Cohen. I’m sure they are incomplete.
That’s a very simple take but close to truth. Another problem is the East is docile politically and the West is not. For that very reason the political establishment around Central government is mostly influenced by the Western part and they control the narratives for the most.
There are also rural black soil areas in the Eastern Ukraine and in many small villages the Ukrainian language is still widely spoken. Remember, Russia killed many of the Ukraine in the 1930s and moved in others. My wife is from Alchevsk in the Lugansk region. She is a Russian speaker but opposes the separatists. She is Ukrainian. Alchevsk is suffering greatly in its current status as part of the breakaway region. Nothing works.
Been following Batchelor on Chicago’s WLS am 890 weekdays at 10 pm following Mark Levin but find they dropped him or did they move his time slot ? Because of the shows scheduled Levin 7pm,Batchelor 10pm Red Eye 12pm. WLS has been a must for me but that replacement show is a turnoff.
Stephen Cohen was a defender of the Soviet Union from the days of Reagan and now is an apologist for Putin.
"For both Professor Cohen and The Nation (including Cohen’s wife, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, the Marxist activist who is co-owner, editor, and publisher of The Nation) Ronald Reagan was Public Enemy Number One when it came to world peace. Throughout the 1980s, Cohen was a constant presence on American talking head shows, ripping Reagan’s “aggression” toward the Soviet Union."
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/04/02/tucker-carlsons-strange-love-for-pro-communist-stephen-f-cohen-expert-on-russia/