Milakovsky blogs about his experiences in the Ukraine
From Milakovsky's Journal:
Welcome to my blog! My name is Brian Milakovsky, I'm an American but I've been living and working in Russia and Ukraine for the past six years.
My job as a forest ecologist (about which I won't be writing in this blog) has taken me to provincial cities, small towns, forest villages and even barely-occupied wildernesses in these two countries. It has taken me across a social and geogpraphic expanse, literally from the Ukrainian Carpathians to the shore of the Sea of Japan in Russian Primorye. This experience has proven painfully enlightening for me throughout the terrible conflict gripping these two countries today.
In my time living here I've developed enormous feeling for both Russia and Ukraine, they occupy a place in my heart not far from that which my own country holds. In truth that feeling appeared in me long before I moved here. Ever since my father explained to me our roots in the shtetls of the Russian Empire's western edges I have been fascinated (obsessed?) with this part of the world. And so the conflict in Ukraine has consumed me, awakening a deep alarm in me that has not resided for more than a year.
For no matter which of the competing narratives about the events of the past year and a half is true (or which combination of them is true), it means that countries I love are complicit in creating a human tragedy of heartrending proportions.
This blog in many ways will be a way for me to sort through the painful questions that the conflict raises for me. I don't claim to have unraveled the knots of accusations, counterclaims and conspiracy theories surrounding it, but my overall view of the conflict is that it came about from a perfect storm of bad decisions by all the actors involved: Ukraine, Russia and the West (first and foremost the United States).