New York Times: Ukraine backs down
It is difficult to sympathize in any way with Ukraine’s corrupt and cynical president, Viktor Yanukovich, but the choice before him was indeed nasty. To sign an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union was to invite brutal Russian economic punishment, which Ukraine’s badly suffering economy is in no shape to absorb. Europe could only offer medium- to long-term advantages. Not signing, however, inevitably meant protests in Ukraine, whose population has consistently expressed support for European integration. Sure enough, tens of thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets as soon as their government announced last week that it was suspending negotiations with the European Union.