Poll: Most Ukrainians want a unified country

[joshcryer]

14. Pretty sure Yanukovych just wanted to get re-elected.

He saw the EU deal wasn't the best and if he accepted it Russia would drop the gas subsidy and screw Ukraine over, that's a no win right there.

Yanukovych could have taken the EU deal with a modification clause, telling Russia that he would find a compromise solution for Russia's side of things. The biggest problem for Russia is that the EU trade deal had more than just "we'll buy and sell you stuff" it require Ukraine to start standardizing on a whole host of trade issues.

* Revamping their agriculture systems to meet EU standards (whoops, the oligarchs don't like that one, can't have the agriculture sector scrutinized and improved).
* Setting up transaction services in compliance with EU standards (whoops, the oligarchs don't like that one, can't have transactions monitored and audited).
* Requiring that Ukraine follow EU intellectual property laws (whoops, the oligarchs can't allow intellectual property laws to be respected).

The DCFTA put a wrench into Russia's Eurasia agenda, if they then went to Ukraine, after it passed, and said, "Hey, we'll give you a several billion dollar loan if you do a trade deal with us" then Ukraine would say "well, we'll do it, but it has to meet the constraints of the DCFTA, so we can't have unsanitary agriculture, if we trade it has to be on a transaction service compliant with EU standards, etc."

I blame Russia, not the EU or the US for the failure to make a trilateral agreement.