Moreover, people feel that the aim of the antiterrorist operation is not just to destroy terrorists, but also to punish everyone who lives in the areas they control. In March 2015, 46.3 percent (the largest percentage since the Ukraine crisis began) of the people in Donbas said that they considered antiterrorist operation to be a punitive measure directed at them.

Second, when governments strip people of their identity, they create a vacuum that will inevitably be filled with something else, like extremism, religiosity, nationalism, etc.

In eastern Ukraine, this vacuum is increasingly filled by a more pronounced Soviet nostalgia. Ten years ago, in 2005, only 25 percent of eastern Ukrainians aspired to the restoration of the Soviet Union, while 48 percent did not. In 2015, the percentage of people in Donbas lamenting the dissolution of the USSR went up to 70 percent; while in western Ukraine, 80 percent still view the fall of the Soviet Union positively.

If the Ukrainian government is trying to follow the example of former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe by banning Soviet-era symbols and ceremonies, they should reflect on the mixed successes similar policies have had in Eastern Europe, even when timing seemed better. In other words, neither of those areas had raging wars on their territories while implementing anticommunist reforms.

The transition to democracy in post-Soviet societies has often been accompanied by poverty, corruption, street crime and social chaos. This has produced a growing romanticization of the Communist past in parts of East-Central Europe. In 2008, Reuters reported a survey of East Germans that found that 52 percent believed that the free-market economy was "unsuitable." Approximately 43 percent said that they wanted socialism back.

Likewise, the conservative Czech government’s strict anticommunism laws have led to “rosier memories” of a “dark system” that offered job security, cheap housing and low-cost food. In 2013, a survey conducted by the Centre for Empirical Research, the main polling agency in the Czech Republic, found that 46 percent of people felt that the present system was better than communism, a twenty-one-year low.

In Latvia, the neoliberal austerity of 2009 has created demographic losses that exceed those created by Stalin's deportations back in the 1940s. As the government cut back on public education, healthcare and other social services, many people found emigration to be the only way out. More than 12 percent of the population (and a much larger percentage of its labor force) now works abroad. Similar trends are observed in Bulgaria and Poland.

Soviet nostalgia is on the rise in eastern Ukraine and hatred of the government is constantly fueled by Kyiv’s policies. Still, eastern Ukrainians are not giving up hope of reconciling with Ukraine. On the question of which integration path Ukraine should follow, in Donbas, the responses were almost equally split between joining: the Customs Union (the Russia-led economic alliance of former Soviet states), 28.5 percent; the European Union, 28.5 percent; and neither, 23.6 percent. In other regions of eastern Ukraine, the largest proportion selected “neither,” while the second largest fraction chose joining the EU (32.2 percent). In all regions of Ukraine, joining Russia’s Customs Union was the least-favored choice.

People across Ukraine are also united in their criticism of Ukraine’s war in Donbas. The majority of Ukrainians in the east do not support military operations and are in favor of peaceful resolution. In western and central Ukraine (the Kyiv government’s main constituency), approximately 60 percent agree; in southern and eastern regions, the percentage increases to 80 percent and in Donbas to over 90 percent.

So whose opinion does the Ukrainian government represent?

These statistics show that people in the east desperately want to believe that the Ukrainian government is capable of offering them a brighter future. But this belief is increasingly harder to sustain when what they face is abandonment and disillusionment.

If it truly wants to reunite Ukraine, the Ukrainian government must offer more support to those in the east who wish to relocate, as well as restore financial, humanitarian and medical assistance. In short, it’s time for a change.

Olena Lennon is a former Fulbright scholar from Horlivka, Ukraine, currently teaching Foreign Policy at the University of New Haven. Her hometown Horlivka, located in the Donetsk province of Eastern Ukraine (Donbas), has been one of the main strongholds of Russian-backed separatists in the past year.

Image: Flickr/ EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection​.