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Are there parts of Ukraine that genuinely prefer to be part of Russia as opposed to Ukraine? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I have zero knowledge of the history or geopoliticial millieu there, I know there's obviously lots of Ukrainians who speak both languages but not sure that translates to them wanting to necessarily join Russia per se.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

That is indeed the case, it's important to keep in mind that Ukraine was created by USSR out of parts of Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. I highly recommend watching a lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and he gives an objective analysis of the situation. Let's take a look at some slides from the lecture here. First, here's the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:

here's how the election in 2004 went:

this is the 2010 election:

As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to: