Bullshit, Yakunin's offshore companies are syphoning money off the Russian Railways with his blessing as we speak.

Yes, it was Russia. The war in Eastern Ukraine was started by a Mr. Igor Girkin, a Russian, allegedly ex-military, a war criminal from the Yugoslavia wars, who also participated in several of Russia's armed conflicts (Chechnya, Georgia, etc.), and who entered into Ukraine across a Russian border, on orders from Russia.

He had done the same thing just two months before that, in Crimea. The only difference between his first and second marches was the changed attitude of the international community, which made Putin reconsider and change his plans.

Along with him came a group of Russian soldiers and officers, allegedly 'on leave' and a lot of serious firepower: large guns, tanks, armored vehicles. The Russian regime has tried to deny this, but the evidence that a huge amount of Russian military equipment and military are pouring through the border is overwhelming, the confessions of Girkin notwithstanding.

Girkin's activities in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine were financed with Russian money, partly by a Mr. Malofeev, a Russian oligarch with ties to the regime, who got his initial capital from state banks.

Mr. Girkin himself addressed your theory about this non-existing local Russian movement long ago. Here are the relevant quotes from his interview in the Zavtra newspaper:

Not quite, there is a nuance, at least on some levels.

In China, corruption scandals are a tool of power redistribution, because China still has a collective system of government and public opinion matters, albeit not quite like it does in the West. Hence, a systematic corruption fighter is a nuisance, but not an enemy of the state by definition, at least on the face of it.

In Russia, things have gone the other way, towards a very authoritarian regime where the system is based on shameless corruption, by design. Speaking against corruption there is speaking against the system and hence a crime against the 'stability', the Motherland and the 'Russian world', all synthesized in the image of the all-powerful, America-crushing superhero Putin, who provides 'order' and helps the country to 'rise from its knees', where it was put by its eternal enemies -- the evil jews and the Americans -- in the early 90s.

Therefore the institutions of the state (and sources of corruption), the state media and the 'public' opinion are always by definition against the corruption fighter. The latter isn't the occasionally useful nuisance, but an outright enemy that has to be destroyed. Of course, as an enemy, he/she's also in league with the 'foreign enemies' and is on their payroll and so a traitor.

Hence the GP's comment about not wanting a 'revolution' -- the fight against the state of corruption is presented (and apparently perceived by many) as a threat to the government and the order, and this line of thinking has gained a significant traction in Russia, at least on the surface.

We'll see how it will survive the economic hardships that Russia unleashed on itself starting the war in Ukraine.