Putin's biggest dream is to establish the Eurasian Economic Union. The current possible members for that union are naturally Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia itself. The other member candidates are Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
As you might have noticed above, Ukraine was not listed. As being a former USSR state and otherwise having a strong connections to Russia, Putin is naturally interested in to get Ukraine into the union. If the western minded government takes Ukraine to itself, that means there is no way the country would join to the EAU. Instead of that they will try get themselves in the EU = Russia will completely lost its power in Ukraine.
"Protecting" the Russian minority in Ukraine is just a transparent excuse, Russia has been doing the same here, in Finland a long time. Well, no tanks on the streets yet, but Russia is eager to involve itself to the politic discussion over here every now and then.
PS2|Wii|DS lite|3DS XL|PSP|Android
