Not that we may ever know, but this is a contrary view of what passes for fact in the Western media: Is It Possible To Actually Know What Has Been and Is Going On in Ukraine? 

This is from near the start.

While I freely admit that I have a longstanding predisposition to distrust the standard American sources on the conflict in that part of Europe—and that my reading about and study of post-Communist Russia over the past twenty years inclines me to be more open to the Russian position in this crisis—at the same time I am very conscious that the first thing to suffer and disappear during war time is truth. And that both sides in this gruesome conflict employ propaganda and whatever media sources available to them.

This is from near the end.

In Ukraine, with the blessing of the Western countries, those who are in favor of a negotiation have been eliminated. This is the case of Denis Kireyev, one of the Ukrainian negotiators, assassinated on March 5 by the Ukrainian secret service (SBU) because he was too favorable to Russia and was considered a traitor. The same fate befell Dmitry Demyanenko, former deputy head of the SBU’s main directorate for Kiev and its region, who was assassinated on March 10 because he was too favorable to an agreement with Russia—he was shot by the Mirotvorets (“Peacemaker”) militia. This militia is associated with the Mirotvorets website, which lists the “enemies of Ukraine,” with their personal data, addresses and telephone numbers, so that they can be harassed or even eliminated; a practice that is punishable in many countries, but not in the Ukraine.

Nothing is really known other than that there are plenty of those running the various shows who are deeply invested in our remaining as ignorant as they can possible ensure.

There is a real symbiosis between the major American media and the political
establishment, centered in Washington D.C. That virtual unity includes both the Democrats and the Republicans, who, if anything, are more war like than their supposed opponents. Indeed, a friend of mine commented that he thought it significant that on the war the positions of Fox News and CNN were almost identical; he said that because he believed that since all the
major news sources were in agreement, then certainly what they presented was truthful….

The more I read, each morning dozens of sources from all over the world, the
more I seriously doubt the commonly-held mantra of the near-totality of our major news media.

That is the one certainty and how things are likely to remain. And does this matter: Hundreds of Ukrainian nationalists march in honor of Nazi collaborator.

“Today, when there is a war with the occupier at the front, and the struggle against the ‘fifth column’ continues in the rear, we remember and honor the memory of Stepan Bandera,” said Andriy Tarasenko, leader of the nationalist party Right Sector.

During World War II, Bandera led the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, whose men killed thousands of Jews and Poles, including women and children, while fighting alongside Nazi Germany against the Red Army and communists.

It may not matter to others, but it matters to me.