Many scholarly studies of the Ukrainian conflict look at its origins, focusing either on the international level (external interference) or the domestic one (including ethnic, linguistic, economic, and regional tensions) (Pikulicka-Wilczewska and Sakwa 2015). The international level of analysis draws attention to external factors, namely Russia’s conscious decision to fragment Ukraine and make it a “failed state” in order to avoid its moving closer to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Even though Moscow denies playing any role in the conflict, several international and independent Russian sources have confirmed the direct involvement of Russian regular troops (Urban 2015; Sutyagin 2015; Yashin and Shorina 2015). For scholars who emphasize the primacy of the international aspect of the conflict, the current war in Donetsk and Luhansk is not a civil war but a war orchestrated and directed from Moscow against Ukraine via Russian proxies (Motyl 2014; Kuzio 2015).