Those were Russia and the Russia-backed "separatists" doing that in the areas the controlled. There's not a shred of evidence of Ukraine doing anything like that, and plenty of evidence of Russia doing this.
If you were told otherwise, you were lied to. Putin loves telling these sort of lies in order to mislead people lile you.
The first is fine. The ending is great, some other parts are bad. Some are very questionable. On the whole, I enjoyed it.