The weekend before last, when British Prime Minister David Cameron was insisting, once again, this time to Francois Hollande, that the European Union will have to consent to remake itself before 2017 if it expects to keep Britain from quitting the Union, Ukrainians were in uproar about how to force their distressed government (and its Russian neighbor, another story) to accept the majority will in Ukraine to join Western Europe, via association with the European Union. Their effort has produced rebellion and spilled into violence.

To the nations once immured in Cold War association with the Soviet Union, the European Union seemed a nearby political paradise — an attainable liberation, once the Soviet Union collapsed, terminated by Boris Yeltsin in 1991. Ukraine was made independent, although still in contention over several important issues concerning its relationship with Russia.

Today the dispute concerns Ukraine's relationship with Russia (and several other former members of the Soviet Union) in the Eurasian trade association Vladimir Putin has formed. Ukrainian President Victor F. Yanukovych has signed the agreement, thereby provoking an uprising among those Ukrainians who are determined to associate their country with the West, by way of an agreement proposed by the European Union.