[GeronL]

One, Russia was vastly overcharging for the natural gas and two, they didn’t join NATO.

[Cossak]

Nobody forbid Ukraine to buy cheap gas from EU AFAIK. But they conducted maneuvers with NATO. Kravchuk and Yuschenko sure were not Kremlin puppets, Yanukovich prepared agreement on joining EU but changed his mind in last moment when Putin promised him big credit and threatened to close Russian market for Ukrainian production.