Ukraine; the Central European Flounder?

We can call this and "undesired 3rd order effect." It is a bit hard to argue the logic - if I were a Ukrainian patriot, I would be well along the road of working this out.

The United States, Great Britain and Russia agreed in a pact "to assure Ukraine's territorial integrity" in return for Ukraine giving up a nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union after declaring independence in 1991, said Pavlo Rizanenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament.

"We gave up nuclear weapons because of this agreement," said Rizanenko, a member of the Udar Party headed by Vitali Klitschko, a candidate for president. "Now there's a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake."
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Rizanenko and others in Ukraine say the pact it made with the United States under President Bill Clinton was supposed to prevent such Russian invasions.
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To reassure the Ukrainians, the United States and leaders of the United Kingdom and Russia signed in 1994 the "Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances" in which the signatories promised that none of them would threaten or use force to alter the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.

They specifically pledged not to militarily occupy Ukraine. Although the pact was made binding according to international law, it said nothing that requires a nation to act against another that invades Ukraine.
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"Everyone had this sentiment that for good or bad the United States would be the world police" and make sure that international order is maintained, Rizanenko said of the Budapest pact.

"Now that function is being abandoned by President Obama and because of that Russia invaded Crimea," he said.

"In the future, no matter how the situation is resolved in Crimea, we need a much stronger Ukraine," he said. "If you have nuclear weapons people don't invade you."

If you wonder a bit about the UDAR party - this Wikipedia article is a nice summary.

Compared to some member of the popular front that took power, you can call UDAR fairly mainstream.

As a side note, if you didn't review the "Salamander Play" from March 3rd, read it again. I'm standing by it.