Ukraina valde Ryssland före EU - stora protester som följd, länkar i inlägg2

Whose interests underlie Russian military action in Crimea, and Moscow's threatening stance towards Ukraine as a whole: Russia's or Putin's?
The Russian government claims that it has sent troops to Crimea to protect the Russian speaking population. No one had threatened them. It was local Russian-speaking "activists" who started the trouble, with barely disguised support from Russian military personnel in the area. Crimean Tartars had every right to be alarmed. Ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea were no doubt dismayed, but neither began nor took part in action aimed at their Russian-speaking compatriots in Crimea.---

Moscow has consistently misread Ukraine. Putin's repressive agenda since his return to the Kremlin in May 2012 has meant insistence on the West as a threat to Russia. Russian mass media have accordingly presented the struggle between Yanukovich and the majority of Ukrainians as one between a malevolent and subversive West and a virtuous Russia, the latter with the best interests of Ukrainians to heart.---

Support for Yanukovich and repeated Russian calls for ruthless suppression in Kiev reflected Putin's concern at risks to the Russian status quo. It is the example and ideals of the West, however imperfectly realised, that is the threat to Putin and his system, not some cunning US or European plan.
The temptation to go further than Crimea is there, and Russians are provoking some unrest in Eastern Ukraine. Moscow's hope that the present Kiev administration will fall apart may be another misreading. But chaos in Ukraine would be no answer to Russia's own problems.
The screws in Russia will now be tightened further – again no answer to Russia's mounting problems.
Putin's vaunted Eurasian Union now looks still more unrealistic. His word will be even more suspect than it already was in the West and beyond it. What looks like a cheap and easy victory to Russian conservatives will prove to be nothing of the kind.

– Jag tror att alla ser att det här är en väldigt känslig situation.

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article18465746.ab

In terms of EU gas imports, this share fell from nearly 50% in 2000 to 31.8% in 2010 and further, to just 25%, in 2012. By contrast, Norway has responded to the new market conditions far more rapidly and flexibly, and adjusted its contracts to reflect a stronger orientation to the spot market – with the result that in 2012 Norway eased past Russia to become the EU’s biggest gas supplier for the first time. Whereas EU gas imports from Norway rose by 12% in 2012, despite gas demand in the EU falling by a further 4% (and in 2011 by as much as 10%), EU imports from Russia from Gazprom fell by 10%.