Deutsche Welle has a rather remarkable report about popular discontent in West Ukraine. Yes, even the Germans are now incapable of spinning the social and economic ruin facing Ukraine:

In the Buzhanska mine 12 kilometers (seven miles) from the Polish border Ukrainian miners are putting on their uniforms and collecting their flashlights as they prepare to relieve the nightshift. The work is grueling and little of it automated. In the past mining was one of the better jobs in the area, with miners able to earn up to $240 (219 euros) a month. With miners owed months in back pay by the state that is no longer case.

"Where do you keep your millions?" "Under my mattress"

The average wage in nearby Novovolynsk, a city of 57,000 built in 1950 to support the then new mines, is $140 a month. Though locals say the most people not working in the mines can hope to make is $119. Here the economic crisis that followed the Maidan protests and the war - which destroyed 60 percent of the local currency's value - has hit hard.

"What did we need all of that for? We've gotten nothing for it," says Svetlana Shevchuk, 56, who is forced to live off of the state's unemployment payments, now worth $20 a month.