On Tuesday Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a gilded room of the Kremlin.
Later in the day, Russia gave Ukraine with a bailout package worth at least $20 billion, which is one of the richest ever offered by Russia to another country.
"Ukraine's trade with Russia makes it impossible for us to act in any other way," Yanukovych said of the deal that pulls the two countries closer. "There is no alternative to this."
The Kremlin is actively trying to persuade Ukraine, by far the most populous former Soviet republic after Russia, from signing a Association Agreement and trade pact with the EU.
Russia leads a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, which is "essentially a free-trade zone across a large section of the former Soviet Union," according to the New York Times.
"Ukraine is our strategic partner and ally in every sense of the word," Putin said..jpg)
After news of the deal, Vice video journalist Tim Pool reported, the protesters who want Ukraine to integrate with the European Union as opposed to Russia built "another wall."
"I think the people will eventually have it their way. We will sign up to Europe. That's why I'm here," Snezhana, a factory worker who spent the night on Kiev's snowy main square, told Reuters.
The walls come in several different styles. Here's one:.jpg)
The protests have been going strong since Yanukovych turned away from the EU deal on November 21. As Ukraine's leader is getting cozier with the Kremlin, the people are getting more restless with their government.
“Yanukovych’s bargaining position is much, much stronger now,” Rojansky says. “At least for the core of the demonstrators, it comes either to a forcible confrontation with the authorities, if the authorities choose to go that route, or a pretty long and drawn-out political siege.” Matthew Rojansky, an expert on U.S. relations with former Soviet Union states at the Wilson Center, told TIME.
"It's hard to imagine it could end up in anything else but a change of power," Irina Litvinianko, a businesswoman, told Reuters. .jpg)
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