The Ukrainians are on the streets again. They have a taste for revolution. The trigger this time was the rejection of a pact with the European Union and a fragile economy.
Russia put the screws on over the last year and the Ukrainian elites blinked. However, they now face an internal insurrection that replicates the stalemate of East versus West, the Donetsk versus the rest.
The risk is that Russia will shift from threats to intervention. Whether Putin colours this as a 'police action' or as a merger, Ukraine's existence as an independent state in the 'near abroad' hangs in the balance.
The Ukrainian bride is playing hard to get and wooing both parties.