KOLESNYKIVKA, UKRAINE—Drive four hours east from the chaos and kidnaps of Slovyansk — so far east that a tossed stone will actually land in Russia proper — and you will find Ukraine’s rural borderlands have a different story to tell.
Yes, the people of Kolesnykivka, a hamlet of few than 500 people living hard on the border, identify overwhelmingly with their Russian neighbours. And yes, they say, in a perfect world it might even be nice to join them.
But there’s nothing remotely perfect about today’s Ukraine. And so for Kolesnykivka, the preferred solution is the status quo. Keep the border where it is, let Russia keep its soldiers on the other side, where they belong.
“We see the madness happening in Donetsk oblast, the tension and the anger, but we don’t feel it here,” said Yuri, 68, a Russian-born retiree who approached a Toronto Star team Saturday, introducing himself as “volunteer border security.”
“If we could just separate and join Russia without triggering civil war in Ukraine, why not? But we cannot. Nothing good would come from the breakup of Ukraine. It frightens (us) to think of the blood that would spill.”
If the unbending attitudes driving the pro-Russian uprising haven’t travelled this far east, the tension and paranoia certainly has. Yuri would not surrender his surname for publication or agree to photographs, yet he was the third of four people — some official, some not — who asked to see their foreign visitor’s passport Saturday.
Complete story at - Tension, paranoia spread to Ukraine's border with Russia | Toronto Star
CC Photo Google Image Search. Source is www.sabrizain.org Subject is paranoia.jpg
Yes, the people of Kolesnykivka, a hamlet of few than 500 people living hard on the border, identify overwhelmingly with their Russian neighbours. And yes, they say, in a perfect world it might even be nice to join them.
But there’s nothing remotely perfect about today’s Ukraine. And so for Kolesnykivka, the preferred solution is the status quo. Keep the border where it is, let Russia keep its soldiers on the other side, where they belong.
“We see the madness happening in Donetsk oblast, the tension and the anger, but we don’t feel it here,” said Yuri, 68, a Russian-born retiree who approached a Toronto Star team Saturday, introducing himself as “volunteer border security.”
“If we could just separate and join Russia without triggering civil war in Ukraine, why not? But we cannot. Nothing good would come from the breakup of Ukraine. It frightens (us) to think of the blood that would spill.”
If the unbending attitudes driving the pro-Russian uprising haven’t travelled this far east, the tension and paranoia certainly has. Yuri would not surrender his surname for publication or agree to photographs, yet he was the third of four people — some official, some not — who asked to see their foreign visitor’s passport Saturday.
Complete story at - Tension, paranoia spread to Ukraine's border with Russia | Toronto Star
CC Photo Google Image Search. Source is www.sabrizain.org Subject is paranoia.jpg
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