Some of the promoters are openly pro-Russian supremacy. Orthodoxy, ethnicity, sovereignty. They're monarchists of an old imperialist stripe that are intolerant to the point of mirroring fascism.
Some of the promoters are openly Communist to the point of having pictures of Stalin on the wall, quoting Stalin, and beating up those who decry Stalin or say Lenin wasn't a good guy. They're unreconstructed Soviet-style Communists.
Party of Regions and the Ukrainian Communist Party were the two biggest players, and the two have hybridized in a few forms. And they've been agitating for a return to greatness by affiliating themselves with Russia since 1993. Even as Russia itself moves further and further away from Soviet-style political organization.
The third reason was fear and rumor. Russia has been terrified of balkanization since 1991. Large, pre-established groups broke away. But it was less clear in the West that Yakutia also declared autonomy, nationalized its resources, and said it would keep resources and income local--boycotting Moscow. Tatarstan and some other fairly autonomous areas tried to do the same thing. All of this factionalization unravelled; Eltsyn managed to restore some order, albeit corrupt; the corruption was tapering off and prosperity returning as Putin was elected, so Putin got the credit. But every time there's some unrest--in Poland, in Prague, in Kyiv--Russia has paroxysms of paranoia. Chechnya was a nightmare for them, and to let Chechnya break away would mean dozens of other groups could and possibly would.
So they speak of "maidans". The white-ribbons from a few years ago still strike terror in One Russia's (Russia United's?) heart. So all enemies of political order and territorial integrity (seen as the same thing) are fascists and anti-Russian (which are near synonyms, mind you). In the spring the official word was young Poles seeking entry into Kaliningrad had to have very specific reasons, because they "knew" those Poles were going there seeking to foment territorial independence. Ukrainians in Russian areas near Ukraine were subjected to increased oversight because of fears they'd break away from Russia. Putin even gave a speech in June (July?) discussing any threats to Russian territorial integrity and responses, and said that they'd neutralized all such threats. Then a handful of Siberians tweeted about federalization in Siberia, staged a couple of mini-protests, and got themselves arrested, their websites closed down, and anything that seemed to approve or support their movement criminalized. NATO language support to Russian institutions was deemed a 5th column, and language about a 6th-column also emerged. That's what Russian-speaking in the Donbas heard. That's what most of the political class in Russia actually believe.
The Euromaidan were all fascists, Jews, gays, anarchists, Westerners, minorities. And the monolingual, D-student workers who were in the economic doldrums and feared losing the power they had, power that had been humiliatingly stripped away, losing their vicarious hold on prestige, fell for the Russian paranoia. Militias looked for fascist rape gangs in the woods of Donetsk, and when they didn't find them had the standard response--"Those fascists are more cunning than we thought, but we know they're there and we'll find them." Apparently the rapists' cunning consisted in hiding and not raping. But those non-raping rapists were still rapists. And when the Russians closed Ukrainian bookstores in the Donbas that was fine, because that's what the Ukrainian fascists wanted. Even if more Russian-language books are printed in Kiev than Ukrainian-language books are. Because Russian tv and radio said so. And ethnicity/language was the guiding criterion for whether Russian-speakers would believe the source. (Unlike the role ethnicity plays in Ukrainian circles, most members of which are still Russian-speaking.)
Putin's territorial ambitions aren't just for the country. But for the ethnicity and culture. While the oil and gas reserves around Kiev are significant, while the military bases on Crimea Peninsula were important, the overreaction is because he knows what happened to minorities under Russian rule and sees everybody as Russians. Crude, racist, supremacist. And humiliated, only able to lift the self-stigmatization of humiliation by commensurate oppression of others. Throw off the Russian yoke and you'll be humiliated by having Russians throw off your yoke. Reject Russian economic and political control, and Russia will try to destroy you. And it was empowering for the Dumbas dwellers to think of themselves as powerful, not crippled--whether nationalistic Regionals or ideologically humiliated Communists.
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