Make Loaves, not War

The Ukraine has always been an attractive breadbasket, and the problem they appear to have confronted is too many politician's hands in the cookie jar. Yanukovych was a corrupt and depraved Despot, people here find it hard to imagine how he could steal, but American's aren't totally aware of the system of corruption they had, in every layer of society. The estimates of what clan Yanukovych stole amount to 100 billion US $, and that was including his period as Governor of Donetsk. State wealth was artificially concentrated in that Oblast, through manipulations, and handily siphoned off.
When you did ask the people about such things, in the past, there was a time they shrugged it off, they all noticed it, their grey economy is actually quite large, as is any nation, like the USA or anywhere else, perhaps Europe has a smaller grey economy.
Russia for a while did a half decent job framing the Ukraine conflict in American's minds as a Civil War,  conflict about language dominance : while they are rapidly engaging with English language courses, they haven't forgot their Russian , if they spoke it at home, they keep using it, the default language I experience in Kiev , when people aren't sure how you like to talk, is Russian , if you initiate in Ukrainian, they still might reply in Russian, and offense not taken, but there are many languages in Ukraine, dialects, and inflections.

A lot of this is about the macro economic scheme to integrate Ukraine into Europe, but I think the regular people in Ukraine simply want free trade, the versatility to go in any direction to improve their lot in life, and live with freedom and dignity as a sovereign state, Because of all this fomented war, hybrid war cast upon East Ukraine by the Kremlin planners, Russia is like a dark shadow to the East , rather than a league of brethren, colleagues and fellow travelers. Yet Putin may be, in large part the Trickster that the West made him to be. Like any autocrat , he has to maintain his grip on power, couldn't a 12 year old school kid sort of figure out what he'd need to do to keep that ? I mean if you impute some awareness of Pop Psychology , say in a school classroom of 12 year olds, couldn't they study him, like as if he were the school yard bully, the one not afraid to pick on the bigger, slower kids, or those other  one's different enough to invite derision ?
What if there could be like a "family therapy session",  say with Mister Putin and Yulia Tymoshenko? how would this lightning strike of reality sound if one were a fly on the wall? And who would be this Master analyst , moderator ? There is such a thing as organizational therapy, but could such a rancorous collection of states like the EU every be effectively collected together for a serious therapy session treatment, like with the BRICS association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa?
but nobody seems to be ready to sit on the Hot seat and accept some responsibility for all this mess, all the rules come from Palatial strongholds and not from the hearts and minds of every day people

I had a good look at Donetsk during the European football Championship and later on in a brief visit got to know some people there, it was a proper, orderly city, true there was some neglect around the edges, and an aura of corruption and wealthy people not afraid to show it, but now, what will come of it? My favorite memory of that visit was the fruit seller on the street , by mistake I handed him a 20 or a 5 under a set of 1's to buy a couple apples, he did not hesitate to pull it out from the wad I gave him, and give it back to me, and the apples were super tasty!

But now people in Ukraine are pretty upset that the Separatists, a lot of them who are foreign Mercenaries, will be granted citizenship, and temporary immunity, but since those enclaves will rule from an artificially manipulated Democratic process, they will pretty much decide whatever they want, there may never be any prosecution of war crimes, and they still seem a long way away from having  case they can prosecute on the MH17 shoot down. Ukraine has agreed to be a part of any investigation into war crimes, and they too can be equally investigated, neither side can be said to be without sin.

What the new normal will look like is anybody's guess nowadays: i just hope they can find a way towards a transparent, prosperous economic reality, and leave this dark time behind.