When the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko announced on Tuesday that his country was increasingly frustrated with the EU dragging its feet on further integrating Ukraine into the union, it came as no surprise.
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In fact, the only surprise was that it took him so long to say it.
The Ukraine has been waiting for the EU to come to a decision regarding a visa waiver for its citizens, but weeks have passed and nothing has materialised.
Poroshenko cut a beleaguered figure as he said: "To delay further would be flagrantly unfair as Ukraine has paid a high price. It would also be dangerous because more unreasonable delays would undermine Ukrainians' faith in Europe, which in fact is what Russia is aiming for."
Poroshenko is right, the Ukraine has paid a high price for its allegiance to Western Europe and the United States.
Ukraine has lost the Crimea to the Russians, and the East of the country is a battle-scarred wasteland where Russia-backed rebels, supported by an ethnic Russian population, are in a tense standoff with Ukrainian troops.
When Poroshenko came to power in the 2014 elections – in the aftermath of the Euromaidan protests that saw Russophile president Viktor Yanukovych flee into exile in Russia – he turned to the West as if to say: "We stood up for you, now it's your turn to stand up for us."
But while NATO, the US and the rest of Europe swiftly imposed economic sanctions on the belligerent Russian bear, who at the time looked set to ramp up the aggression and extend it into the Baltics, real help for the Ukrainian forces fighting rebels in the East of the country was not forthcoming.
Since then, the Ukrainian conflict, along with the war in Yemen, has drifted to the fringes of the space occupied by the war on ISIS in Iraq and the Syrian Civil War.
The Ukrainian population is right to feel aggrieved. With a mighty push from the West, they rose up in 2014 against the pro-Russian government in Kiev.
They fought and won, or so they thought. What nobody foresaw – or if they did they failed to mention it – was the swiftness of Russia's counter-punch. The Crimea was annexed in a Blitzkrieg movement, helped in no small fact that the Crimean population allegedly welcomed the Russians with open arms. And then the war in the Donbass saw them lose control of both the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Ukraine has nothing to show for its sacrifice, and observers know that Russia is playing a waiting game – its focus was in Syria and its eye now turns to US and NATO troops amassing in the Baltic states.
Russia also knows that with immigration being the hair-trigger for the wave of right wing politics sweeping Europe, a visa waiver for the Ukraine is unlikely in an election year.
The road ahead for the Ukraine will be long and arduous, with trials and tribulation aplenty, but it is a road it chose to walk along with an ally, who's fallen out of love with its cause.
As president-elect Donald Trump lines up the trumpets of isolationism from Europe and sends roses to Vladimir Putin, the Ukraine might find itself cut adrift. And all the while Russia will watching, and as we all know...the bear never forgets.
