evidence: ict over the miniscule island of Tuzla should lead all of us to ask: why? This is the last development we expected to happen only twelve days after the signing of the Common Economic Space agreement (CES) by Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The creation of the CES crowned three years during which Ukraine’s multi-vector foreign policy was reoriented from west to east. [...] Launching territorial claims against Ukraine in Tuzla is a less risky strategy than reopening the Sevastopol issue (although some Russian politicians have linked the two). If we add this nationalist issue to the "anti-oligarch" campaign that has stepped up with the arrest of Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then we can see that Putin is riding a populist wave.