And would Russia be willing to gamble national security on a Ukrainian gridlock, party of regions (or whatever remains or renamed/rebranded) was decimated in the the turmoil, it did not have the same amount of influence to even muster up a gridlock? As for legitimacy of laws passed under duress - that's what actually happened, it is history at this point, we don't need to guess whether it would have been accepted or not, it did, it happened and it was accepted by the EU. To the credit of Interim government, they did try to wait for formal elections before passing anything else significant and not signing passed laws on the executive level such as with the language repeal.

For me what was happening was not something surprising, especially after Russo-Georgian conflict. It is fairly obvious what Russia fears and what they do to address the issue. Russia is in a weak position and cannot win economically/culturally, so their only remaining option is military intervention and the further Russia is pushed the closer we are to a formal military confrontation between great powers. EU + US can easily smother Russia to death over the long term but Russia will not just roll over and die, they will try everything and the more desperate they are the more bloodshed will come from it.