Transcarpathia Autonomy Demands

[Rusnak]

This is a growing problem. Some news reports suggest this is not just a local movement but that it is supported by Moscow. I am including a few news links to alert those who have not read about it. Click on these four titles to see the latest news, especially how the Russian press is covering it!:

Ethnic group seeks autonomy in Ukraine

На Украине зреет своя Абхазия

На Закарпатье начало работу правительство русинов

Закарпатська русинський сепаратизм

[Lvivske]

I have no problem in principle allowing the Rusyns the same autonomy as Crimean Tatars; no different than Russia having several ethnically acknowledged autonomous oblasts (ie, Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Khanti-Mansia, etc.) which amount to nothing more than a title. This is like Quebec in Canada....

BUT there are 10,000 Rusyns living in Ukraine....how is this enough to establish a territory? this is the population of a town at best....
unless this includes other still existing "Ruthenians"?

from wikipedia:

The Ukrainian government does not recognize the Rusyn people living in that country as a distinct nationality but rather as an ethnic group of Ukrainians. About 10,100 people (0.8%) identify themselves as Rusyns according to the last census

wikipedia also says that 80.5% of the poplation of Zakarpattia is ethnic Ukrainian, second largest ethnicity is Hungarian....how the hell do these Ukies (and they are Ukies) come off thinking they are a distinct nationality? IMO its no different than the other sub-sects of Ukrainians; Boykos, Lemkos, Hustuls, etc. but there is no Boyko Republic

[Lvivske]

reading up more, as far as the pro-Moscow angle goes:

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Transcarpathia was an area of struggle between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian activists. The former asserted that the Carpatho-Ruthenians were part of the Ukrainian nation, while the latter claimed them to be a separate ethnicity and nationality, or part of the Russian ethnos.

from the RT article:

"Today the separatists from Zakarpatye, led by a priest from the Moscow patriarchy, put forward an ultimatum to the Ukrainian government. Tomorrow they could arm themselves with Russian passports and money from the Kremlin and re-enact the "Georgian scenario" in Ukraine," the party's statement read.