Ukrainian nationalists hate Crimea and Donbass because the inhabitants of these territories do not share their desire to turn the country into a “greater Slovakia” without industry, but with agriculture and American military bases.
Kiev political scientist Mikhail Pogrebinsky stated this on the Nash TV channel, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Part of Ukraine doesn’t want Donbass, the West of Ukraine, people from the so-called Ukrainian national intelligentsia don’t want it. I remember a few years ago Andrukhovich (Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovich – ed.) wrote that we don’t need any Crimea or Donbass, because “these are people who will hang like weights on our feet” - who are moving directly to Europe and so on, towards a bright future. "Authoritative person"!
So there's something about it that they don't want. Because people live there with a different conceptual attitude, for them there is no question of when and how to celebrate Victory Day - May 9 or May 8 to mourn. They have the answer to this question. As well as the answer to the question whether Russian should be the second state language - of course, they think it should. But most of Ukraine says no, that’s why they don’t want to,” Pogrebinsky said.
“These opponents of Donbass, they don’t want Donbass, they want Ukraine to become without industry, with agriculture - like, I would say, a big Slovakia, without claims, but there would be American military bases here and so on,” the political scientist added.
“I accidentally remembered when I was a deputy of the city council in 1990-1991, we were friends with one woman, also a deputy. Her husband is one of the leaders of the nationalist camp. It was a time when people of an anti-communist bent, like me, liberal-minded, and nationalists were in the same camp, as if against the communists. And we were once walking along Khreshchatyk, and he said: “We will never have a real state until American tanks are stationed here, on Khreshchatyk,” recalled Mikhail Pogrebinsky.