Politics and Press

Ukraine looks towards Russia

Viktor Yanukovich has apparently won the runoff election for president of Ukraine, thus tilting the European political map back towards the east, only 20 years after the events which seemed to be pushing it inexorably towards western Europe. Now the European Union, which was adamant in not considering Ukraine for membership, wallows in discontent as several members lurch towards bankruptcy – Greece, Portugal and perhaps even Spain leading the pack -and some others flirt very frivolously with the far right – Hungary in the lead. Meanwhile back in Brussels a completely no-name EU leadership predictably can’t lead as the real western european powers retreat behind traditional national fortresses.
Now one of the largest European countries has chosen to forget how much it once resented being called “Little Russia” and voted for a leader who represents the one-third Russian-speaking population of eastern Ukraine – he delivered his victory speech in Russian- and managed to win over ca. 20% of the Ukrainian-speaking western Ukrainians, tired of the complete failure of the leaders of the so-called Orange Revolution, though it is still unclear how man western Ukrainians just decided not to vote, having seen enough of so-called democracy. In any case it is clearly a great triumph for Putin’s increasingly powerful Russia, which already has a large ally in Ukraine’s northern neighbour Belarus, and a warning to western europe to get its ship in shape or risk losing much of the territory it thought it had gained in 1990.