god, it's some scary stuff, especially for people who aren't taking sides, they just want to live on with their lives.

It's a Civil war. One of worst types of war

interesting news. Federalist shut down a helicopter. Pilot survived but after so called "rescue team" from Junta's National guard arived, they don't rescue him but took his pistol, call him a traitor and leave pilot bleading. Federalist militia rescued poor guy and took him to a hospital

There are no such people in Slovyansk. For one sole reason everyone were dismissed as terrorist. So it i no more of question how to live their lives, but rather how to protect their lives and lives of their relatives. Not fun at all.

Whats interesting is that you call them federalists, while the rest of western media calls them separatists. By definition federalists support a unifying government, which these people dont seem to do. While the disambiguation may be nuanced, forgive me if I see the idea of supporting a corrupt, russian puppet government far more distasteful than the technocratic junta currently in Kiev. I mean no disrespect, I'm simply trying to see why the alternative option (joining russia) is more appealing than staying ukrainian.

You made a few mistakes.First. People on South west of the Ukraine don't wan't to join to Russia. They for change a political entity of the state. Also they don't want to lose economic connections with Russia . South-west is a industrial part of country and these economic conections are important to them.

Second. Junta in Kiev is a not technocratic. First laws they made is not about solving economic or poltic problems. first they do canceled law about regional languages. Now peoople in the ukranian can officialy speack only on ukrainian. Selling a governor posts. And don't forget discussing about giving to all nonukranians a "nonsitizen" status. for me it's quite nontecnocratic.

And by the way these a how Juna's loyalist solving a problems with oposition
https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hph.....55922175_n.jpg

burning people alive