_This past week in Eastern Ukraine there have been new government buildings seized, there have been hostages taken, assassinations, assassination attempts and riots in the streets, but unless you were paying very close attention to the back story (the part of the story that the mainstream media avoids completely), you might be wondering how the situation unraveled so fast.

The fact that the provisional government in Kiev attempted twice this month to use the Ukrainian military to crush the separatist uprising in the East, is a big deal. The fact that they failed twice is an even bigger deal. Based on the headlines coming from the New York Times and U.S.A. Today, you might assume that these events never happened, and you would certainly never come away with the understanding that the chaos we are seeing right now is a direct result of these blunders.

All attention is on Russia. Russia did this, Russia did that, Russia might do such and such… The idea that Kiev brought any of this on themselves, is never entertained even for a moment by any of the major talking heads on the left or the right.

All attention is placed on Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, and mass invasions that some source in the provisional government keeps claiming are imminent (but never seem to materialize), while these so called journalists conveniently ignore the elephant in the room here: The provisional government in Kiev has no aura of authority. They aren’t respected by the civilians, and more importantly they aren’t respected by the Ukrainian military. The simple fact of the matter is that the Ukrainian military is more than capable of clearing out the occupied towns if they really wanted to, but they don’t want to. Their actions prove this.

Can you blame them? What would you do if you were receiving morally questionable orders from men who took power in a coup with direct assistance from the United States government?

And another thing. Stop calling the separatists “pro-Russian”. If you listen to their statements the actual sentiment of the protesters is primarily anti-Kiev. They don’t trust the provisional government. Leaning towards Russia is just the default reaction in the absence of convincing leadership.

Russia is certainly an important variable in this equation, but nothing makes up for a lack of perceived authority. Yes, Russia threatened to intervene if Kiev used the military against the protesters. That was significant, and it’s very possible that this warning influenced the outcome, but consider for a moment what that means. Without the use of overt force Kiev is completely incapable of controlling the situation. The figureheads at the top of Maidan have become (or perhaps always were) the very thing they condemned when they were protesting in Kiev just a few months ago.

Keyboard commandos can battle this out on the internet all they want, but Eastern Ukrainians view the provisional government in Kiev as subordinate to Washington. Unless that changes, stability is a pipe dream.

SOURCE: SCG News