Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko. Wikipedia
Nicolai N. Petro & Josh Cohen, National Interest: Ukraine's Government Is Failing to Unite Ukrainians
The current course of denigrating those deemed insufficiently Ukrainian will only lead to a fracturing of the country.
Last month Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko dramatically expanded his country’s sanctions against Russia by imposing multiyear sanctions on a number of IT companies. Once they are fully implemented these sanctions will impact some twenty-five million Ukrainians, or nearly every Ukrainian internet user.
These were but the latest in a litany of sanctions that began in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea. First, restrictions were imposed on Russian television news programs, then artists, films and, most recently, books published in Russia. Most recently, Ukraine passed a law requiring 75 percent of television content to be in the Ukrainian language—leading one Western journalist to accuse Poroshenko of appearing to “equate being Ukrainian with speaking Ukrainian.”
Critics say the government is trying to create a virtual wall around Ukraine, in a futile attempt to keep out all Russian influence. They worry that once this is accomplished, Kiev will seeks to impose a nationalist agenda on the country by attacking as disloyal the cultural affinity that most eastern Ukrainians feel for Russia.
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WNU Editor: Currently .... President Poroshenko is polling in the teens. These new measures are going to guarantee his poll numbers going into the single digits. The next Ukraine Presidential election is slated in March, 2019 .... and everyone I know in Ukraine are just waiting for that day. In the meantime .... the anger that is building up in the territories in the east and in the south east .... and in major cities like Kharkiv where my aunt and her family lives .... I am genuinely worry that Ukraine may soon be entering into a wider conflict beyond Luhansk and Donetsk.