In a big victory for Russian president Vladimir Putin, Ukraine suddenly rejected European Union membership and further alliances with the west, choosing instead to revive talks with its old master Moscow.

“Ukraine government suddenly bows deeply to the Kremlin.  Politics of brutal pressure evidently works,” read the tweet from Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

Brussels was ready to invest deeply into the cash-strapped country of 46 million people.  But Ukraine’s parliament balked at releasing incarcerated former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko who European leaders consider a political prisoner.  And the Kremlin had threatened to retaliate if Kiev moved to the west, raising fears it could cut energy supplies in new round of “gas wars”.

“This is a disappointment not just for the EU but, we believe, for the people of Ukraine,” said a statement from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. 

Ukraine, with its declining economy, will seek solace in the arms of Russia, other members of a Moscow-led customs union, and the former Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States.  The EU’s pressure to get Tymoshenko released, however ineffective, is now rendered moot.  She remains in Ukraine, two years into a seven-year prison sentence, unable to travel aboard for treatment for acute viral infections and spinal slipped disks.