"much of what we are hearing is Russian propaganda." But rather more probably comes from the other direction. A lot more complicated and less clearcut than the media seems to be telling us.

Yakumovych and Putin both have some dictatorial qualities, but both were elected, as is of course quite common with dictators. Undoubtedly a lot of people in Kiev and the western part of Ukraine were hostile to him, and had voted against him, but there is no particular reason to assume that a majority of Ukrainians felt the same way.

The complicating thing in Ukraine is that it's really two countries, one in the west that has quite a lot in common with Poland, and where popular opinion was against Yakumovych, and preferred the idea of links with the EU, in the East of the country it is far more Russian in language and other ways, most especially in Crimea. And the Eastern part is actually larger, with a bigger population.

So when the Russians move troops into the Crimea, that isn't seen by the people there as an invasion, but a liberating force, in support of the legitimate government of Ukraine agains a coup which has overthrown it. And they appear to hope to be able to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. And that is probably more or less what the people in
the rest of Ukraine think as well.

All a mess. And a very scary mess. I was watching a TV programme about the Great War, and how a seemingly peripheral terrorist assassination built up over a few weeks into an unstoppable rush into total war. And then turned over to the news...

My feeling here is that though some kind of conflict between Ukraine and Russia might indeed be on the cards, it's not going to escalate into anything more than harsh words and maybe economic sanctions so far as the rest of us are concerned.

But then that is probably what I would have thought back in 1914 in the wake of Sarajevo....