UKRAINE: As Washington and the EU decry the apparent election of Mr Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine, Russia is the only major nation to hail his victory as a democratic triumph. Dan McLaughlin explains why
A year after Georgia's "rose revolution" loosened Moscow's shackles on the strategic Caucasus nation, the Kremlin is aghast at the prospect of the West-leaning Mr Viktor Yushchenko coming to power in Kiev at the head of a popular, peaceful revolt.
As European and US observers raised grave concerns over election fraud and voter intimidation, and thousands of angry Ukrainians massed in central Kiev, President Vladimir Putin sent warm congratulations to Mr Yanukovich on an "open and honest" win.
Mr Putin visited Ukraine twice in the last days of the election campaign, to bolster Mr Yushchenko and his political mentor, outgoing president Mr Leonid Kuchma, whom critics accuse of everything from gross corruption to the murder of critics. It was an unprecedented show of support from Mr Putin, underscoring the importance the Kremlin puts on having a man that it trusts at the helm in Kiev.
Now bordered by three new EU and NATO members - Poland, Slovakia and Hungary - Ukraine is courted by Brussels as a possible future member, much to Moscow's chagrin. If Russia is to make anything of grand plans to build an economic counterweight to the EU, uniting several former Soviet states, then it needs Ukraine on its side.
Without an ally in Kiev, Moscow would not only see a further withering of its sphere of influence and become more reliant on a dwindling group of friends in the Caucasus, but could hit snags moving vital oil and gas exports through Ukrainian pipelines to the West, and come under pressure to close military bases there.
Analysts say powerful politicians and businessmen in Moscow also have much to lose from a defeat for Mr Yanukovich, who draws support from the industrial and mining heartland of eastern Ukraine, where Russia's language and influence is strongest.
"Yanukovich was chosen because there are people in Russia's government who are interested in a continuation of the status quo in Ukraine," said Ms Masha Lipman, from Moscow's Carnegie Centre.
As leader of a country whose elections are regularly dismissed as rigged absurdities, Mr Putin may also fear the reverberations in Russia of a Yushchenko victory that is clinched on the streets, showing "people power" defeating corrupt state power.
Mr Boris Nemtsov, who saw his own liberal party annihilated by Mr Putin's supporters in last year's elections, said that would be a "huge personal and tactical defeat for Vladimir Putin." Rather than being a solid, silent friend and buffer from EU and NATO, Ukraine would be buoyed by a Western cash injection and a self-confidence born of what some are already calling the "chestnut revolution", for the trees that abound in central Kiev.
As a post-Soviet state with democratic institutions, free media, a gradually improving standard of living and a westward trajectory, it could be an embarrassing neighbour for a Russia that is still poor and where civil rights are under growing pressure.
"It is more practical to have a neighbour who is like you instead of a neighbour who is more democratic and has a better reputation," says Ms Lipman.
When Mr Putin sits down at The Hague for an EU-Russia summit tomorrow, Ukraine is likely to be on the minds of everyone there.
For the EU, it is a strategic potential member with a market of almost 50 million consumers; for Russia, it could be the most painful deserter yet from its post-Soviet fold, and the one that prompts a realignment of foreign policy, in favour of its largely authoritarian Central Asia neighbours, and China.