You'd have to be living under a rock not to know that some really big things are happening in Ukraine right now. The US media is giving the situation good coverage, but Ukraine is pretty much the only topic of discussion on the news here in Russia. People are obsessed with the events in Ukraine, and it's understandable why: Russia and Ukraine have a long history together, and most people in Russia have friends and family in Ukraine. This is a mini-revolution happening right at Russia's doorstep. 

The difference between Russian and Western news coverage of Ukraine is striking. Western sources report that demonstrators seized Maidan after Yanukovich snubbed the EU in favor of closer ties with Russia and that those demonstrators were killed by Yanukovich's police, proving that Yanukovich and his policies didn't represent the interests of the Ukrainian people. To Western eyes, Yanukovich's ouster was a victory for the Ukrainian people and a chance for Ukraine's nascent democracy to flower. Russia's aggression and seizure of the Crimea is portrayed as a violation of international law and proof of Russia's malicious desire to maintain its Soviet sphere of influence. 

Russian media shows a very different picture. Those demonstrators on Maidan were hired by the EU and US and in no way represented what Ukrainians want. The demonstrators were mostly criminals and hooligans who ruthlessly murdered defenseless policemen who were prevented by cowardly Yanukovich (who was afraid of what the West would say if he allowed the police to use force against the demonstrators) from taking steps to defend themselves and restore order in the center of Kiev. The protests themselves were criminal and should have been broken up immediately, allowing the government and the people of Ukraine to work. Any grievances should have been solved through political channels, not demonstration. 

The Russian media has far harsher words for what has happened in the past two weeks. According to Russia, the Ukrainian parliament had no right to fire the democratically elected president--that's not democracy. The people of real Ukraine (the eastern, Russian-speaking part of the country) don't want this change that has forcefully imposed on them by the West. Bring up the fact that western Ukraine strongly supports these new developments and you'll hear that western Ukraine, and the city of Lviv especially, has always been against Russia and is mostly made of rebels and traitors (parts of western Ukraine collaborated with the Nazis during WWII). As for the developments in the Crimea, Russians believe that territory is really part of Russia and was mistakenly given away during the Soviet Union, so Russia has a right--a duty really--to protect the ethnic Russians who live there. 

The long and the short of it is that Russians are hearing a totally different version of events than people in the West hear. As with everything, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Also, having been to Ukraine, I can appreciate how complex that country is. Lviv is a totally different city than Odessa: Lviv is solidly European, whereas Odessa is Russian. The next few weeks will be very interesting, to say the least. 

Here's a picture of me in Lviv during my trip to Ukraine last year.