UKRAINE: If anyone was likely to raise the hackles of the ex-KGB man in the Kremlin, it was the burly former shipyard worker with the walrus moustache and taste for revolution, writes Dan McLaughlin
When Lech Walesa clambered onstage alongside Viktor Yushchenko in Kiev, he conjured both the spirit of Poland's anti-Soviet Solidarity movement and the centuries-old ties linking Ukraine to its Western neighbour. Mr Walesa's political star has long-since waned in Poland, but he was greeted as a hero by thousands of Ukrainians for whom he still embodies a nation's escape from the grip of Moscow and the heady start of its journey into the European Union and NATO.
As President Vladimir Putin's aides in the Kremlin muttered darkly about Western meddling in Russia's "sphere of influence", the high-profile role played by Polish politicians in Ukraine was a reminder of the country's schizophrenic past and present.
While the Russian language and Orthodox Church prevail in industrial south-east Ukraine, where Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich is strongest, the largely agricultural west of the country has much stronger links with Poland and is dominated by the Ukrainian language and Catholicism.
Poland ruled this region until the second World War and, along with Lithuania, controlled most of present-day Ukraine until the 17th century, when tsarist Russia took over.
It has irked Moscow greatly that the two Baltic neighbours - both former Soviet satellites and new EU members - have taken key roles in talks to end the Ukrainian crisis.
Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski and his Lithuanian counterpart, Mr Valdas Adamkus, have been ever-present at negotiations in Kiev, with Warsaw particularly keen to become the middle man between Brussels and the old Soviet Union.
While Russia still calls the likes of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Armenia its "near-abroad", the EU has made its interest in them plain by declaring them part of its own "common neighbourhood".
After Georgia slipped Moscow's leash last year in the so-called rose revolution, which brought a young, West-leaning leader to power, the "loss" of Ukraine would be a bitter blow to Mr Putin, who presents himself as a man capable of restoring global prestige to a fallen superpower.
He has already been humiliated by having to withdraw the congratulations he sent to Mr Yanukovich on his "victory", and is seen as having badly overplayed his hand by twice visiting Ukraine to back his favoured candidate before the vote.
"That was an unprecedented move," said Mr Kwasniewski. "It wouldn't have carried any risk if the result had been clear, but in the face of deep divisions such as those in Ukraine there should have been greater restraint."
Poland's press and public have strongly backed Mr Kwasniewski's efforts in Ukraine, inspired equally by memories of Solidarity's success and the chance to give Moscow a bloody nose while enjoying EU and US protection.
"This is a huge defeat which the Kremlin has brought upon itself," wrote Poland's influential Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper after the election results were annulled.
"There's no stopping freedom," the newspaper proclaimed, amid something of a pro-Yushchenko frenzy that saw it giving away copies with free orange ribbons, the emblem of Ukraine's opposition movement.
Historically torn apart and parcelled out by Germany and Russia, Poland's only worry now lies to the east, where pro-Kremlin Belarus and Ukraine have offered no real buffer from Russia's perceived antipathy since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
"We have the feeling of sharing a common destiny with Ukrainians," said former Polish defence minister Mr Bronislaw Komorowski. "Our past experiences show that we have every reason to fear Moscow."
But that fear would diminish significantly should Ukraine become, as appears possible should Mr Yushchenko win the St Stephen's Day election re-run, a stable democracy with a strong civil society and growing economy boosted by Western investment. Ukraine's 50 million-strong consumer market would be hugely attractive to Polish business, as would the opportunity for increased leverage in talks with Russia on vital gas and oil imports that arrive through Ukraine's pipelines.
A Westward shift in Ukraine would also benefit the economies of its other EU neighbours, Hungary and Slovakia, provided it wasn't accompanied by violence that prompted a surge in asylum-seekers at unprepared border crossings.
In most former Eastern Bloc states, a defeat for the Kremlin and its allies is still often hailed as an automatic triumph for the nation.
A Yushchenko victory, therefore, would be welcomed throughout the region, except by Moscow-backed regimes like those in Belarus and Moldova, upon whom pressure would undoubtedly increase.
For men like Mr Walesa, addressing the orange-clad masses in Kiev, the final battles of the Cold War are only now being decided. "Twenty-four years ago, I was in the same situation as you are now," he told the cheering crowd. "I opposed the Soviet Union and I opposed communism, and I came out victorious. Now Ukraine has a chance, too."