[goldstategop]

Ukraine’s east is heavily Russified and is called the “novorossiya.” Yanukovych’s political base is with voters east of the Dnieper and they all favor closer ties to Russia. And the Party Of Regions has close ties to the Russian “party of power,” United Russia. For Moscow, given Western threats against a friendly country, there are no downsides and are plenty of upsides.

[Jimmy Valentine]

You are both spot on Yanukovich is not popular; he does not even speak Ukrainian to standard.

Poor Ukraine has so much going for it but the corruption is holding them back.

Russia would like nothing better than to pull Ukraine back into their orbit.

There in fact a lot of descendants o Russians in eastern Ukraine. Stalin, in an effort to hold the Ukrainians in re-settled lots of Russians down there.

But the Ukrainians remember the "Holodomor" the deliberate starvation of about 10 million Ukrainians caused by Stalin. Russians are not well regarded there.