re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Russian treatment of Ukrainians was so bad that when the Germans invaded in 1941, many Ukrainians viewed them as liberators form Soviet Russian oppression.

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This is an identity issue that goes back to the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, to Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and to the Russian capture of what had been Ottoman territory along the Black Sea. Parts of modern Ukraine considered themselves part of the West, and other parts do not. You could see the cleavages in the pre war elections, and the way the Party of Regions won in the south and in the east, but you can still see it now even during the war. Overall, 50% of Ukrainians believe draft dodging is okay, but that figure climbs to 70% in the South.