A very interesting post,
haku. I was surprised that your figure for the GDP per capita of Ukraine was so much lower than that of the Central European and Baltic States. The reason is that you quoted them with purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP per capita, while you quoted Ukraine's raw GDP per capita. It's like comparing apples and oranges.
The CIA World Factbook
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
gives PPP GDP per capita: France $26000, Latvia $8900, Ukraine $4500
http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/menu_infopays.html
gives raw GDP per capita: France $24037, Latvia $3500, Ukraine $843
You can see that the difference between Ukraine and Latvia is in fact much less than the difference between Latvia and a rich EU member state like France.
Incidentally, Russia is as wealthy as Latvia either way.
I do agree that Ukraine is in a mess. It hasn't reformed and shouldn't be admitted now. But I wasn't saying that it should be. I was disagreeing with your view that it should
never be.