"The courage these activists are showing is going to do a lot to help accomplish their political goals."
What are their political goals? The author of this piece seems to say that there are none, other than being generally angry. Even if you know what you're fighting for, it's hard to accomplish; if you don't know what you want, it's rather unlikely you'll get it.
That entirely fails to even mention the ethnic angle, which is probably the main thing never-mind the current political details. The western part of the country speaks Ukranian, not Russian, and was historically aligned with the Polish empire.
There isn't an ethnic angle - although Russian-speaking, the majority of the population of the east is also of Ukrainian ethnicity. Even the language thing isn't that big of a deal, almost all Ukrainians use both languages to some extent.
The media both in Russia and West like to play up the East vs. West angle, which I believe is inaccurate. While there are foreign and cultural factors in Ukrainian politics, this is a much more boring story of corruption, mismanagement authoritarianism and human rights abuses of the current rule.
They seem to state that the only reason why euroassociation was cancelled is pressure from Russia.
Just wanted to note that there is another reason: he was afraid of damaging economy, especially economy of ukrainian east, which depends on manufacturing which will be disrupted by european goods flowing in.
What are their political goals? The author of this piece seems to say that there are none, other than being generally angry. Even if you know what you're fighting for, it's hard to accomplish; if you don't know what you want, it's rather unlikely you'll get it.