I dunno how accurate this is, but back when protests against Yanukovich started, I saw people on reddit predicting his ouster and civil war, because of the history of Poland...
Seemly Poland in the run up to WW2 got parts of it conquered by URSS, and later when WW2 was over, some territory that was part of Germany became part of Poland to "restore" its territory, effectively shifting Poland westward, this means that eastern Ukraine had polish people inside it.
The guy then explained that Ukraine east side is full of ethnic Russians, even if they consider themselves Ukranians, while west side is filled with ethnic Polish and related groups.
He predicted then (the violent protests didn't had started yet when I read this) that the ethnic EU people would be pro-EU, and would oust Yanukovich in violent protests, and the ethnic Russians would retaliate in some form, either trying to retake the capital by force, or splitting away.
The part of Poland that was annexed during WW2 had 3 major ethnic groups there - Polish people, Ukrainians and Jews. Most of the Jews got executed during the war, Polish were sent back to Poland by Stalin.
Yet culturally Western Ukraine has much less ties with Russia, due to not being a part of Russian empire.
Again and again, I read this 'ethnic' treatment of conflict in Ukraine. That is not true, for example Kyiv is majority (even today) Russian-speaking, yet it always supported pro-West politicians in elections.
Seemly Poland in the run up to WW2 got parts of it conquered by URSS, and later when WW2 was over, some territory that was part of Germany became part of Poland to "restore" its territory, effectively shifting Poland westward, this means that eastern Ukraine had polish people inside it.
The guy then explained that Ukraine east side is full of ethnic Russians, even if they consider themselves Ukranians, while west side is filled with ethnic Polish and related groups.
He predicted then (the violent protests didn't had started yet when I read this) that the ethnic EU people would be pro-EU, and would oust Yanukovich in violent protests, and the ethnic Russians would retaliate in some form, either trying to retake the capital by force, or splitting away.