(CNN) -- As Washington pundits watch the carnage in Kiev, images of a rapacious Russian President Vladimir Putin, puppet master of Ukraine and of its president, Viktor Yanukovych, stalk the headlines. Putin, the theory goes, is willing to stoke a civil war in order to keep Ukraine from turning to the West. America's obsession with Putin, however, does not explain the complex realities fueling the uprising in Ukraine or the uneasy relationship between Putin and Yanukovych. Long before the uprising began, if Yanukovych had carried out real economic and political reform, he would not have been caught between a long-term promise of a closer relationship with Europe and an immediate hand-out from Moscow and with it the Kremlin's demand that he toughen up and put down the opposition's demonstrations.
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Jill Dougherty: The popular image is that Putin is manipulating the Ukraine crisis
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She says reality is that Yanukovych is to blame for avoiding economic, political reform
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The turmoil in Ukraine is a major headache for Putin's regime, she says
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Dougherty: Putin not eager for an epic battle with the West over Ukraine
Betrayed may be too strong a word, but certainly Yanukovych has managed to play the @placeholder off the Russians."