--- uvj at vsnl.com wrote:
If that is the case, why did Russian back Yanukovich in the recent elections in Ukraine?
Ulhas --- Moscow backed Yanukovich for the same reason it backed Bush. Moscow always supports the incumbent.
The only real negative possibilities for Russia are the status of the Black Sea fleet and a delay in Ukraine's ratifying the Common Economic Space (and not even the latter is that big of a deal -- the Common Economic Space is mostly Russia. Russia's economy is bigger than Ukraine's by a factor of something like 15).
It was the media that spun the elections in Ukraine as a West vs. Russia thing. Yushchenko never said anything hostile about Russia. In fact Moscow was the first capital he visited after he became president. Ukraine is inextricably linked to Russia for a whole variety of reasons.
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