Putin should beware aftertaste from Kiev poll

For Vladimir Putin, the results of the Ukrainian presidential election are sweet. But the Russian prime minister should savour the success of Viktor Yanukovich with some care – there may yet be a strange aftertaste.

At first lick, there should be nothing to disturb Mr Putin. President Viktor Yushchenko, Kiev’s pro-west champion, has been comprehensively beaten, losing in the first round with barely 5 per cent of the vote – a humiliation for the Nato-supporting Orange Revolution hero.

Mr Yanukovich, who overcame Yulia Tymoshenko in Sunday’s final round, is the most Russia-friendly of the top candidates, even if his sympathies are outweighed by dependence on his real masters, Ukraine’s industrial billionaires.

To add spice for Mr Putin, this is the same Mr Yanukovich, who lost in 2004 when he was Moscow’s publicly backed candidate. The gaffe-prone former convict is not exactly the ex-KGB colonel’s best mate. But he owes the Kremlin a few favours.

Mr Yanukovich’s victory will probably not mark any dramatic Russia-oriented shift in foreign policy. The big change came in 2008, when NATO decided against extending membership to Ukraine (or Georgia) for fear of offending Russia. The point was rammed home during the Georgia war. For Mr Yushchenko, who had earlier discovered that the European Union did not want Ukraine as a member either, it was the end of a dream.

Subsequently, Kiev took a more balanced approach. With Mr Yushchenko in retreat, Ms Tymoshenko, as prime minister, developed relations with Mr Putin at the same time as promoting EU integration. With Mr Yanukovich there will be a bit more Russia in the mix but the two-track policy will remain in place.

Yet beneath the surface there are hidden dangers for Mr Putin. The most important challenge of the Orange Revolution was not the threat of Ukraine breaking away from Moscow and joining the West. This was unlikely, given the myriad ties between the two countries. And if events ever had moved in that direction, Russia had powerful tools at its disposal, such as fomenting separatism in Crimea.

What really disturbed Mr Putin was the Orange Revolution’s potential political influence on Russia. It was a democratic challenge, albeit indirect, to his authoritarian structures. With protesters overthrowing leaders at around the same time in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan it was possible to believe liberalisation was sweeping the former Soviet Union – and that the ultimate target could be Russia.

In the event, the new regime in Kyrgyzstan proved little different from the old. In Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, president, allowed himself to be drawn into a disastrous war. In Ukraine, as Mr Putin never ceased to point out, the Orange Revolution was followed by chaos.

The circumstances of the Orange Revolution – the protests, the blatant foreign involvement by Russia and the West, and the subsequent turmoil – made it easy for Moscow to portray democracy as a mess. But this time it could be different. If Mr Yanukovich can create a stability – a big if – and generate economic recovery – an even bigger if – it will be harder for Mr Putin to argue Russia has nothing to learn from Ukraine.

This is not an issue for today. Even though Russians are angry with the recession, there are no threats to Mr Putin’s grip on power. Recent demonstrations in the Kaliningrad region and sporadic protests elsewhere do not change the picture. And no one looks to Kiev for advice.

But who knows about the future? Mr Putin and his protégé, President Dmitry Medvedev, do not run a totalitarian state but an authoritarian system in which some argument is tolerated. Every so often, there is a note of real dissent. Last week, Sergei Mironov, speaker of the federation council (parliament’s upper house), attacked the government’s economic policies and was promptly slapped down by Mr Putin’s United Russia party. He retorted: “Does United Russia think that opposition and criticism is dishonest? In a civilised society, this is the duty and aim of the opposition.” Could Ukraine one day serve as an example of such a “civilised society”, even in Russian eyes?

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