>>>In the east, they aren’t suffering.<<<
In fact they are. They are better off than the rest of Ukrainians but they could do much better if they haven’t been forced to pay for welfare and development programs of the rest of “pro-Western” Ukraine.
Pro-EU protesters are certainly not about to improve their conditions via enterprise and hard work using European deal.
For some reason they believe EU freebies are better and they can soon move to Germany to leech taxpayers there.
For the eastern businesses and blue collars who are actually living not through welfare and bailouts but through work and trade (mainly with Russia and CIS nations)EU deal is a huge risk for their products to be taxed by Russian customs on par with the rest of EU products.
Well, that’s true. The east accuses the west of ‘sponging’ and a lot of the students in the capital do sponge.