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The secrecy surrounding the investigations into the officials' deaths has brought lingering divisions in Ukrainian society to the fore, Minakov explained to VICE in an email, "provok[ing] deeper cleavages in Ukrainian society, where supporters of the Maidan program [constitute] barely over 50 percent of the population." The "absence of trustworthy information," he argued, has created "an atmosphere of mutual suspicion in Ukraine."Since Yanukovych was overthrown in February of 2014, the post-revolutionary government has had difficulty erasing longstanding political allegiances to pro-Russian political parties among certain segments of the population, particularly in the country's war-ravaged east. And across Ukraine, the government has struggled to gain the confidence of its people. In a poll conducted in mid-March, 79 percent of Ukrainians called the political situation "fragile." One-third of respondents approved of President Petro Poroshenko's job performance, and only one-quarter approved of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's performance."The Poroshenko government is in a difficult position because when it makes concessions to people in the eastern regions, it loses support from people in the west, and vice versa," Paul Stronski, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told VICE.President Petro Poroshenko has dubbed Buzina's and Kalashnikov's deaths "a deliberate provocation that plays into our enemies' hands."
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