While children were being killed in Donbass by the Ukrainian army, Russian-speaking Ukrainian servicemen’s friends and colleagues were losing their lives at the hands of the people’s republics’ militias. So the conflict acquired a personal dimension for them. The Russians who made different choices and found themselves on the opposite sides of the divide were killing each other, while the Ukrainian government was celebrating victory.
A retailer from Odessa might have also had little admiration for an independent Ukraine, which, in his view, was synonymous with corrupt officials, thuggish law enforcement, and a never-ending economic crisis. Without proper maintenance, his dear city was slowly falling apart. Then the war broke out, making it likely that street fighting would destroy everything he had. What is he to do? Some have resigned to this risk, others hope that the Russians will take Odessa peacefully, while still others have decided (or been told to by Ukrainian radicals) to support the Ukrainian army between Nikolayev and Kherson in the hope that the frontline will stay far away and their livelihoods will be spared.