Here goes a bit from my latest in the Huffington Post on the outcome of the presidential elections in Ukraine and the return of Viktor Yanukovych.  Though it was published after I had already posted my article, I liked this line from the Economist:  “…old habits will die hard. The practice of buying judges or appointing prosecutors to safeguard business interests is alive and well. The temptation to bend the rules again to win a valuable asset could prove too much to resist.“

The supreme irony of the Yanukovych victory is that there are many good reasons why this outcome is bad for Putin and good for Medvedev, and detrimental to the siloviki while opening opportunities for the seemingly yearning reformers within part of the state. As the historian Timothy Garton Ash has noted in the Guardian, “there is no evidence that the oligarchs behind him want Ukraine to cease being an independent country. Their interest is to play both sides, Russia and the European Union.”