Can the protesters have their own local reasons to want to join the EU that we with our pariochal outlook are incapable of understanding?
I’ll give you one: a citizen of an EU country can live and work in any other EU country. D’UH!
Yes, that is one reason. The other (obvious, I would think—until FReepers fell in love with Vladi), is that these countries are weary of living under the Russian boot, and are trying to attach themselves to the West.
Its primarily a thumb in your eyes to Russia.
But even the opposition understands that the West is not going to help Ukraine cover losses from whatever sanctions Russia might impose.
Ukraine has little choice but to join the Russian-led customs union because its economic survival and geography make closeness to Russia imperative.
The West is not going to prop up Ukraine any more than it came to the aid of the Hungarians in 1956 or the Czechs in 1968. Ukraine is on its own. There is better truth in the notion the EU wants the kind of partnership in which it will not really stand behind Ukraine.
That much is already clear.