I'm neither Ukrainian nor eastern Ukrainian, but I think here's what's going on. Even if we assume that Russia hasn't directly sent anyone to eastern Ukraine, those 2 "uprisings" are pretty much different by the goals and methods of implementation. While the Kyiv one was definitely a pro-Ukrainian one that simply targeted to put down Yanukovich's government, which the people thought was more of a burden than any sort of help for the Ukrainian people, the eastern one is more tricky, but by far it's clear that they (I don't mean all eastern Ukrainians by any means, but just those "fighters") don't really consider themselves Ukrainians, and don't really want to live in Ukraine, and they actually want to get separated from Ukraine, and it can easily be viewed that many of them would want to join Russia. Now, it's clear that it's NOT an internal argument in the country, it's Ukrainians on one side, and "those people" (whoever they are) on the other side. Now, speaking of their methods, I wonder how many people from the Maidan (the Kyiv uprising) were armed with AK-47 and similar weapons? How many of them stole weapons including grenades and such? How many of them actually used weapons for attacking purposes? How many of them took hostages to achieve their goals? That is all what those "eastern guys" have been doing.