I started following the situation right after the turning point when the Ukrainians started demonstrating not for the EU integration but for their civil rights at Maidan Nezalezhnosti (TN: Independence Square), the main square in Kiev.
Since I have many friends and acquaintances in Ukraine who also took to Maidan, I received information almost first-hand and knew perfectly well that First Channel (TN: one of the main TV channels in Russia) lies and passes a peaceful rally for all-Ukrainian desire to get even with the Russians (that according to First Channel and Kiselev (TN: Russian journalist and TV-host) are all Russian people) basing its knowledge on insults from instigators, who shook chains against a file of immovable special forces who were allegedly commanded not to react but to tolerate beatings.
My friends from Kiev wrote me: “Do not trust TV. People at Maidan are peaceful. There are no scuffles apart from obvious provocations from Kiev ultras. The people at Maidan are singing songs, they drink tea. There are many prayer tents. There are almost no drunks among those who came to support the rally.” At the same time on First Channel they showed some random shots where the Ukrainians were beating up helpless special forces and police and deeply loathing the “cursed Russians” and waving nationalistic flags of local “Demushkins” (TN: Russian National Socialist movement which aims at the creation of a Slavic national state (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_Union). And the main thing was there were just two thousand people in Maidan. Have you ever been in Kiev? When both Khreshchatyk (TN: the main street in Kiev) and Maidan are full, they can hold some couple hundreds of thousands people!
The Russian side, I regret to say, hardly accepted the Ukrainian version about peaceful rally and that now Ukraine stood for its civil rights and not for European integration that would this way or another curb their freedom of movement in Europe, be Ukraine even a threefold member of EU. Those who had recently rallied for their rights at Bolotnaya Square in Moscow also did not support the Ukrainians and that seemed odd to me. Besides, the Russians commented what was happening in social networks – “the Ukrainians simply do not want to work”, “Go to Maidan and preach Christ, you, shameless folk”, «the president is anointed by God” and so forth. Few of my fellow Russians took the side of Ukraine. I can perfectly understand that many can only see the Ukrainian desire to be separate from Russia in this rally, but if so many Russians write commentaries like the abovementioned ones, what do they have left to do? They realize that Europe does not need them and Russia does not need them either, and such constant accusations and rude statements in preachy tone just witness to that.
I would like to share my opinion, if you will. I think that we as Christians should remember that we have civil rights that determine that we are a part of society. And if we see injustice done by the government and administration, we should not be inactive. We should not only pray for the government, but should also voice our opinion in legal and lawful way, if we disagree on policy. In fact, this is something that was done by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niem?ller, priests who opposed Hitler, and Martin Luther King who fought against segregation. We have a right to it just like the Ukrainians!
Stas Sorochinsky