I just watched Oliver Stone's 2016 documentary, 'Ukraine On Fire'. I had a lot of problems with it but I still strongly recommend everyone watch it. It has a lot of great historical background of the events since Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union. It also has an outstanding explanation of how a 'color revolution' works, the best feature of the film.
What are the problems? It's an Oliver Stone production. Stone has never in his entire career produced anything, fiction or non-fiction, that wasn't entirely one-sided. The man is and always has been a propagandist, not a documentarian.
Examples are his complete lack of criticism of Putin in any way. Another is his total focus on western machinations in Ukraine to the exclusion of all else. Does anyone seriously think that the FSB (formerly KGB) didn't interfere in any way in Ukraine this whole time? Obviously the Russians were trying just as hard as we were to manipulate narratives, inflame partisans, spread disinformation, and generally undermine the pro-western government any way they could. But not a single word about that was said in Stone's movie. Yet another was the claim that 'protesters' seized and took over the government buildings in what's now the Donetsk People's Republic. Virtually all reports say Putin's heavily armed 'little green men' in fact seized the buildings and immediately turned them over to the pro-Russian protesters. The documentary is filled with this kind of spin, omissions and outright falsehoods.
My fear is that people will watch this and think they have the full story. Stone has always hated the American government, which anyone who's seen any of his films knows well enough. He was even willing, as a full blown leftist, to give a total pass to the Russians, a major boogeyman of the left. That's how virulent his hatred really is, as he's made clear every time he speaks about it.
The thing we need to do is watch Stone's documentaries with open eyes, remembering who Stone is and what his agenda is. Do that and you will be educated instead of indoctrinated.
Good summary. "On Fire" also ignores some of the older reasons for Ukrainian nationalism, i.e. the abuses that Ukrainian people suffered under Soviet rule. Nonetheless, I find it to be a good counter-balance to the narrative that our media has been attempting to force-feed us. Reality is certainly somewhere in between.