What does Putin want with Ukraine

[Xen]

Lumikki said:

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.

The analysis of Putin's general objective is correct, it's just that in this case, it's not what's trying to be achieved... at least, not directly.

After thinking about it a bit, it seems to be more of a pre-emptive strike in an attempt to secure Crimea as a naval base in the black sea. You can be sure that the fascists in the Kiev Rada will want to cancel that agreement - and who knows how soon. The secondary objective is to incite unrest in pro-Russian parts of Ukraine - so far it seems to be successful (but ultimately gainless for the people doing it, or Russia). Odessa and Donetsk Radas have been taken over, both have Russian flags hanging over them now.

However, for current Ukraine, going the way of the EU or association with it, means a Bosnian or Moldavian scenario, so honestly, whichever government, whichever president, it always seems to be a lose-lose situation, really... one is a spineless fuckup (Yanukovich), the forthcoming ones are just suicidal.