The EU had Ukraine over a barrel and was demanding that they sign a punitive agreement that would have caused even greater hardship than the country is sufferin

The EU had Ukraine over a barrel and was demanding that they sign a punitive agreement that would have caused even greater hardship than the country is suffering now. Have you read that association agreement? It is brutal. What I want to know is why can't Kyiv negotiate its way into the EU in stages, step by step, and at each stage the agreement would be small enough that it could be explained to the people of Ukraine and they could vote in a referendum based on the facts, rather than some fantasy ideal of "sign document, get rich".