Even in the rust-belt south-east of Ukraine, the economic pressures that pull coal- and steel-workers towards Russia are why the region’s oligarchs still cling to Kiev: they fear being swallowed up by the big beasts of Russia’s economy. Although the terms of the EU Association Agreement were demanding enough, the oligarchs could see that integration into a Russian customs union would be curtains for them. Strikingly, Putin referred to his emasculation of Russia’s new rich in his first public comments after the revolution in Kiev. He blamed ousted president Yanukovych for failing to rein in his over-mighty economic subjects, as Putin had done in Russia. In fact, the new regime in Kiev appointed oligarchs as governors in restive regions, hoping they could pay for security forces, which a bankrupt Kiev could not. Since Ukraine’s police forces are still the ones who performed so woefully under Yanukovich, with their divided loyalties and an eye to who can pay most, effective crowd control is virtually impossible.