If the pro-Russian Yanukovych's victory holds, coupled with the recent rigged electoral victory of communist strongman Alexander Lukashenko in neighbouring Belarus, the two elections will mark a major milestone in Vladimir Putin's apparent strategy to rebuild the old Soviet Union. Putin campaigned long and hard in Ukraine for Yanukovych.

As I write, massive street demonstrations are underway in Ukraine's capital, Kiev, protesting what western observers have denounced as a crudely rigged vote that re-elected old Soviet machine politician Yanukovych, and dashed hopes the pro-Europe democratic reformer, Viktor Yushchenko, would lead Ukraine's 48 million people into closer association with Europe.

Ukraine split along historic lines, with the European-oriented western, largely Uniate Catholic half (once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), supporting Yushchenko, and the Eastern Orthodox portion, notably the Donets coal basin and industrial Luhansk, with 10 million ethnic Russians, favouring Moscow. Crimea, an ethnic Russian and Tatar region, went solidly for the pro-Moscow camp.

Yushchenko supporters have massed in the streets for days and called on the army and security service to join them, invoking the threat of political chaos, even civil war.

As of this writing, the security services, heavily influenced by Russia's secret services, appear loyal to Yanukovych. But the call by one of their senior generals for the Supreme Court to decide the election raises the intriguing possibility the security organs may step aside, just as Soviet KGB units did during the communist coup in Moscow in 1991, and not confront the people.

While wily Putin was campaigning and intriguing furiously for Yanukovych, America, Canada, and Europe reacted with feebleness. Preoccupied by elections and Iraq, the Bush administration did little to support pro-western forces in Ukraine. Instead of shoring up Yushchenko's forces with finance and diplomatic support, Washington sent the lightweight Sen. Richard Lugar, a nobody on the international stage, to encourage them. Europe and Canada did even less.

After the rigged election, lame-duck U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell issued a series of unspecified "serious" threats against Ukraine, an unproductive demarche most observers regarded as too little, too late, and futile.

In fact, the Bush administration was too busy pushing the post-communist regimes of Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania to send token troop contingents to Iraq.

Many westerners make the serious error of dismissing Ukrainians. Russia will never regain great power status or reassert its traditional influence in East Europe unless it re-absorbs strategic Ukraine. But if Ukraine and Belarus fall back into Russia's mighty orbit, the Baltic States will come under renewed Russian threat.

The narrow-minded Bush administration, obsessed with Iraq, seems too busy playing footsie with the region's nouveau communists to notice these immensely important geopolitical threats.

Ukrainians, at least western Ukrainians, are a distinct, effervescent people of high culture that brought civilization and Christianity to Russia. Ukraine's Cossack origins imbue this feisty people with a fierce love of freedom, a rejection of authority, a profound romanticism, and a dashing spirit of adventure that make them seem more French than East European.

Ukrainians have suffered as much as any people on earth and deserve a decent life. The world remembers millions of Jews murdered by Hitler, but totally forgets the 6 million Ukrainian farmers and intellectuals murdered by our ally, Stalin.

Ukraine's Supreme Court has suspended the electoral results until tomorrow, when it will consider opposition charges that the vote was corrupted by massive fraud.

Europe, finally alert to the danger in Ukraine, vows not to recognize Yanukovych, putting the EU on a collision course with Russia. Putin warns Europe to stay out of Ukraine.

What to do? Europe has shown the way. Boycott and isolate any non-democratically installed government. Call Putin's bluffs. Most important, Europe, Canada, and the U.S. should demand that a new vote be held in Ukraine, organized and run by the United Nations. It's time for a real people's revolution in Ukraine.

© 2004 Toronto Sun

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