[netsharc]

How about you look at it from a different perspective? Putin and Yanukovych are corrupt fuckers. I know it's a lazy answer to google for sources, but google it. Joining the EU means having more scrutiny from Brussels, and if you're a corrupt autocrat, would you want that? No. How about you engage in some what-if thinking and think, "What if Yanukovych didn't want to join the EU because he didn't want his corruption be scrutinized?". What if Putin doesn't want Ex-Soviet countries join the EU because his own citizens might look at the non-autocratic countries and see how progress can be made, and they might start wondering why they're still dirt poor, is it because all the money in their own country went to Putin and friends' pockets?

As to fair elections, here's some numbers about support for joining the EU from Ukranians (which you can conveniently dismiss by saying the pollers are "controlled by the West"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93European_Union...