Because nothing makes it sound more like an attempt to restore the Soviet Union than hearing someone say it's not an attempt to restore the Soviet Union. From Interfax:
Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) cannot be regarded as an attempt to restore the Soviet Union.
Matviyenko said the EEU comprises 170 million people and is the eighth largest economy in the world. "It's the largest integration association in terms of territory and we are not talking about attempts to re-create the Soviet Union. Russia or other members of the EEU are not thinking about creating a new unified state," Matviyenko said on the Federation Council's television council Vmeste - RF."
"The situation today is somewhat reminiscent of a scene from the Soviet comedy film Wedding in Malinovka, which was set in a Ukrainian village during the time of the Russian Civil War. With power alternating almost daily between red and Ukrainian nationalist forces, the villagers of Malinovka are never sure who is in charge, so they modify their behaviour and dress accordingly. The movie’s catchphrase is “the authorities are changing again”, and the characters’ habit of either donning or removing a budenovka partisan hat, could well be applied to any of the towns on the frontlines today."
Read more here:
Ann Applebaum in "The Washington Post" takes on "The Myth Of Russian Humiliation":
"...[T]imes change, and the miraculous transformation of a historically unstable region became a humdrum reality. Instead of celebrating this achievement on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is now fashionable to opine that this expansion, and of NATO in particular, was mistaken. This project is incorrectly “remembered” as the result of American “triumphalism” that somehow humiliated Russia by bringing Western institutions into its rickety neighborhood. This thesis is usually based on revisionist history promoted by the current Russian regime — and it is wrong....
And her conclusion:
"The crisis in Ukraine, and the prospect of a further crisis in NATO itself, is not the result of our triumphalism but of our failure to react to Russia’s aggressive rhetoric and its military spending. Why didn’t we move NATO bases eastward a decade ago? Our failure to do so has now led to a terrifying plunge of confidence in Central Europe. Countries once eager to contribute to the alliance are now afraid. A string of Russian provocations unnerve the Baltic region: the buzzing of Swedish airspace, the kidnapping of an Estonian security officer.
Our mistake was not to humiliate Russia but to underrate Russia’s revanchist, revisionist, disruptive potential. If the only real Western achievement of the past quarter-century is now under threat, that’s because we have failed to ensure that NATO continues to do in Europe what it was always meant to do: deter. Deterrence is not an aggressive policy; it is a defensive policy. But in order to work, deterrence has to be real. It requires investment, consolidation and support from all of the West, and especially the United States. I’m happy to blame American triumphalism for many things, but in Europe I wish there had been more of it."
From TASS on the "special status" legislation that reportedly came into force in Ukraine today:
Ukraine's law on a special status of Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk regions) came into force on Saturday as it was published in the parliament's official newspaper Golos Ukrainy (Voice of Ukraine).
On October 16, the presidential website read Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has signed a law on a special status for Donbass.
"Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has signed the law 'On special procedure of local self-government in separate districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions'," the report said.
"Document No. 1680-VII defines a provisional procedure of organizing local self-rule and operation of local power bodies in separate districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions," it said.
Today's Ukrainian situation map, also from the National Security and Defense Council:
From Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council: