There is currently a developing story about how various players intersect in the Ukraine. The short version is the Trump lifts sanctions against Russia, a Ukranian politician named Artemenko leads the charge to oust the current Ukranian president Poroshenko on corruption charges, and Russia keeps Crimea. This was outlined in a document hand-delivered to Michael Flynn, the disgraced/resigned National Security Advisor, by Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime personal lawyer with massive interests in the Ukraine.

It's an unholy mess and Talking Points Memo seems to be doing the best job of tracking this facet of the ongoing trainwreck.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-trump-...

There's also this fantastic New Yorker story just published that outlines the Russian position generally. Shorter: fucking with the U.S. was worth it to push back against American arrogance and to assert Russian worth on the world stage; didn't expect it to work this well.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and...