Ukraine is not alone in being targeted by a Russia that uses restrictions and bans on trade as a weapon. Moscow seeks to punish neighbouring countries economically if they disagree on policy.

Despite clear Russian trade threats, former Soviet republics Moldova and Georgia intend to sign initial association agreements with the EU even as Ukraine has pulled out. Moldova has far more trade with Europe than with Russia. Even its outlaw region of Transnistria, populated by ethnic Russians, does 30 to 40 per cent of its foreign trade with Europe.

Georgia's new government is ostensibly friendlier with Russia than the one that fought a war with Moscow in 2008, but not so friendly that it would turn its back on European ties and European markets that offer far more potential. Russia has wielded trade bans against both countries, based on supposed sanitary infractions, and promises to keep doing so. That was one of its main tactics against Ukraine this past year.

As Russia tries to exert its will within the former Soviet Union, Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of a foreign policy magazine, suggests the country could be going through its ''little Britain'' phase. That is, Russia is still trying to find its place in the world after the downfall of an empire, just as Britain did after World War II, and that can involve a fair amount of small-minded petulance and occasional compensatory swaggering.

Russia's bullying has won few friends among Ukrainians, who are wary of rushing into a deal to join Mr Putin's Customs Union and will look for any counterweight they can find. Even Belarus, already a member of the Customs Union, though a prickly one, recently had a nasty dispute with Russia over control of the fertiliser trade that included the jailing of a prominent Russian business executive.