On November 22, Ukrainian democrats celebrated the fifth anniversary of the start of the Orange Revolution. The celebration is tear-stained because the heroes of Maidan drove Ukraine to its present miserable condition Pravda.Ru reports.

Viktor Yushchenko's favorability rating does not exceed the margin of error. Yulia Tymoshenko still stays afloat, but the results of her activity as the Prime Minister leave much to be desired. It was obvious to many that the current executive power in Ukraine is not capable of building a long-term development strategy. Until recently, it was assumed that Tymoshenko would be able to get to the Presidential Elections to be held on January 17, 2010 without bringing the country to an economic collapse.

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The Russians and Ukrainians continue to discuss the addresses of their presidents, Dmitry Medvedev and Viktor Yushchenko, to each other. In January of the next year the presidential elections will take place in Ukraine. Very few people doubt that Viktor Yushchenko has no chances for reelection. However, about one month and a half ago he announced his intention to take part in the presidential election. Yushchenko seems not to realize the realities. The controversy between him and Dmitry Medvedev confirms it once again Pravda.Rureports.

The Russian president found it necessary to stress out a huge difference between the desires and aspirations of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples and the position of the outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko. Not only did he fail to reduce the gap between different regions of Ukraine and reconcile the society excited by the Orange Revolution during his presidency, but on the contrary, he did his best to deepen this gap. The same happened with the relations between Russia and Ukraine.

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How things have changed. The People Power colour revolutions have spluttered and now faded away as reality starts to bite, as it becomes increasingly apparent that people are not easily duped by pie-in-the-sky promises and crucially, as it becomes blatantly obvious that each nation occupies a cultural space that has to be respected.

It therefore comes as no surprise that Viktor Yanukovych has won the Ukrainian Presidential election against Yulia Tymoshenko. And even less of a surprise that the darling of the West, the pock-marked face of the Orange Revolution, outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko is a political nobody in no-man's land. The Ukrainians did not want to join NATO, the Ukrainians did not want to be colonised by the European Union. They want jobs, they want schools, they want hospitals, they want to eat.

The first results from exit polls would indicate a clear victory for Viktor Yanukovych with around 49.42% of the vote, with Yulia Timoshenko garnering around 44.46%, a lead of five points.

Will we once again witness a sea of protesters in Independence Square, Kiev, chanting "Razom nas bahato! Nas ne podolaty!" (Together we are many! We cannot be defeated!), as was the case in November 2004? In a word, no. Independence Square is empty, the Orange revolution has run out of steam; in fact it never came to the boil.

Why? Because it never amounted to anything more than hype created by meddlesome Western influences which wanted Ukraine in NATO. Ukraine and the Ukrainians were used by the arms lobby and Yushchenko was the pawn, the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

President Viktor Yushchenko stepped on thin ice the final days of the campaign: He named a controversial nationalist a "Hero of Ukraine."  Only after collecting a humiliating 5% of the vote in the first round of the elections did he make his declaration.  In Ukraine's most avidly Western-leaning, anti-Russian city, news that the rare honor had been bestowed on Stepan Bandera was met with jubilation. Disgust and dismay swept the Russian-speaking provinces, where Bandera is remembered for what he really was:  a Nazi collaborator.

In a letter to Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, the Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed "deepest revulsion" over the decision to honor Bandera, "who collaborated with the Nazis at the beginning of World War II, and whose followers were linked to the murders of thousands of Jews and others."

Yushchenko has been a petty, inept, corrupt dictator.  He lost almost all voter support during a long series of feuds with prime minister and one-time ally,Yulia Tymoshenko.  They both engaged in a competition of who could undo the other's actions.  The result:  total disaster and imminent economic collapse for Ukraine.

In the January election, President Yushchenko received less than six per cent of the vote. For some reason. Firstly, Viktor Yushchenko is an academic. He belongs behind the cloistered walls of a University, not in real life. His foray into the real world saw him destroy any political credibility and saw his power base shrink from half of the electorate to a handful of people with poor judgement. Hence his total isolation from the people, his isolation in parliament.

Viktor Yushchenko's idea for the Ukrainian people was to take pot-shots at Moscow, hoping in the process to carve out a national identity. Blind to the problems that his pro-NATO stance would cause not only with Moscow but among the Ukrainians themselves (66% of the population are strongly opposed to any notion of joining the Organization), blind to the effects his russophobic measures would have (33% of Ukrainians speak Russian as their mother tongue), blind to the fury his move to evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol would cause, the result of his failed policies is staring him in the face.

Yushchenko's foolish policies saw Ukraine lose its energy subsidies from Russia and saw his country humiliated in the international community as the Ukrainians started stealing Russian energy supplies in transit to Western Europe. He armed Georgia in its murderous act of aggression against Russians, siding with the war criminal Saakashvili.

At home, he promised economic prosperity but shamefully mismanaged the economy to such an extent that the Hryvnia lost half its value and managed to become indebted to the IMF, receiving loans which always have neo-conservative and anti-social strings attached.

Where now?

Tymoshenko's calls of foul play have been dismissed as officials said they had not received any reports of serious violations during the voting.  "The second round got underway smoothly, without blatant violations of public order," Volodymyr Mayevsky, the head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's public security department, told a news conference in Kyiv.

Petulant Tymoshenko called for street demonstrations, but apparently Ukrainians have had enough of her crying wolf constantly.  The results of responding to her calls have turned out quite badly for them.

 As all exit polls indicated no less than a 5 percent advantage for Viktor Yanukovich in the election, Tymoshenko's threats and sour grapes might throw the election into the courts. The Orange Revolution spelt five years of paralysis for Ukraine. It was an abject failure.

Lisa KARPOVA

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

After presidential elections Ukraine may recognize the independency of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, said Anatoliy Tolstoukhov, the Ukrainian MP [party of regions], the ex-minister of Yanukovich's government - Regnum Georgia Times reports.

"It's very pleasant to hear when countries like Venezuela recognize independency of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but more important is to have the process in post-Soviet space. Ukraine can say its word in regard of independency recognition of these states".

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According to Sergey Ratushnyak, the Mayor of Uzhgorod, and the presidential candidate, Ukraine must be saved "in the most dictatorial way" - Lenta.ru. "The villain must be cut to his size; the bribetaker judge - up against the wall; prosecutor - up against the wall; customs officer, taxation officer - up to the wall. Every state official must have a choice: decent and well-paid job or a guillotine" Georgia Times reports.

Ratushnyak highlighted that only such radical measures can save Ukraine and drive it out of crisis. The presidential candidate also said that corruption is blossoming in Ukraine; and all the TV channels, financial system, industry and energy sphere belong to "evil clans". Presidential elections in Ukraine will be held on January 17th 2010.

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Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko called for communist statues to be removed and Soviet street names to be changed, in a speech on the country's Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression. The president attended a memorial service at the Bykivnia mass grave on the outskirts of Kiev, where up to 150,000 people executed in the Stalinist purges were buried.   read more...

Ukraine's new President, Viktor Yanukovich, is the center of attention among the observers of eastern Europe, who are trying to categorize him as being pro-Russia or pro-West. This approach smacks of Cold War undertones. Two questions: When are they going to let the Cold war drop and suppose Viktor Yanukovich does neither, or both?

Unfortunate as it may appear to many Western opinion makers who make a living out of taking pot-shots at Moscow and its Government, the Russian Federation is not the antithesis or the Nemesis of the European Union, Western Europe or the United States of America. Therefore any talk of Ukraine's newly-elected President Viktor Yanukovich swaying towards Moscow and away from Europe is as nonsensical as is the notion that if you are with Moscow, you are against the West.

The outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko ended his last days in office with the sort of diatribes which saw him getting 5 per cent of the vote, declaring that Yanukovich is a Kremlin project. Had Yushchenko the Orange darling spent more time concentrating on the economy of his country and less on hysterical and provocative anti-Russian brinksmanship, his political legacy might have been a tad happier than his epitaph reads: an abject failure who led his country into a five-year void and who ended his days electing a Fascist and Racist Nazi collaborator as a National Hero. He may as well have claimed Himmler was Ukrainian and dedicated a statue to him in Independence Square.

First and foremost, Viktor Yanukovich was elected President of Ukraine by the Ukrainians, and rather than veering to the West or to the East, he promises, in his own words, to follow "a balanced and pragmatic" foreign policy. Yet it is in domestic policy where the hearts and minds of the voters lie, and as President Clinton pointed out, "It's the economy, stupid!"

Five years of bickering between Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko led to political deadlock at a time when Ukraine least needed it, a time when sensible leadership and fence-mending are the order of the day, not fence-building.

In his domestic policy, Viktor Yanukovich promises to avoid confrontation and work towards unification of the Ukrainian political capital to work together towards the development of the economy. In an interview to the Wall Street Journal, Europe, Ukraine's new President declared that his election campaign "Ukraine for the People" is "a deep and comprehensive plan that clearly specifies how to achieve social and economic progress".

It is here where he will start and once the political chaos has died down and the country starts moving forward, Ukraine can take advantage of its geographical position between Russia and western Europe and become very much a major player in both fields, establishing strong ties with both and being biased towards neither.

To do this, a Yanukovich Presidency will concentrate on building the economy from within, creating jobs, stabilising prices, fixing reasonable levels of wages and pensions, attacking corruption and preparing the ground for attracting foreign investment.

Having stabilised the economy, in a second term, he may review Ukraine's pretensions of joining the European Union while at the same time becoming a bridge between West and East but putting Ukraine and the Ukrainians first. After all, that was what he was elected to do and this is what he will set out to begin upon his inauguration, set for February 25.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru