But it was the talks with the EU that were pivotal. The promise that Yanukovych had made to the Ukrainian population was the promise of Europe. Ukraine’s officially sponsored media were talking up the Association Agreement as a prelude to full membership. The EU gave no indication that that was likely, but it did nothing to deflate expectations. Western press sources billed the Vilnius summit quite openly as the climax of a “six-year campaign to lure Ukraine into integration with the EU and out of the Kremlin’s orbit.”
