Yevgeny Kiselyov’s column in the Moscow Times brings up an important point I have been mulling over this weekend, right as Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions lurches toward a comfortable lead for the next run-off vote against Yulia Tymoshenko.  Exactly how much would his leadership change the country’s relations with Europe and the United States, or how different would they be from Tymoshenko’s administration?

Some of the most divisive issues are pretty much off the table.  NATO membership talks are completely stillborn with Washington’s reset policy, and it looks like short of openly declaring that accession will never be granted, the Obama Administration is probably wishing that Bush had never strung Georgia and Ukraine along this far.  With regard to EU membership, there is some saying about hell freezing over first which would apply.  The Eastern Partnership (EaP) appears aimless, and few in the West seem to be mourning the fall of the Orange Revolution.  Yet despite all lamentable failures of Europe to embrace Ukraine along with its flaws, it is not in the country’s long-term interests to surrender political sovereignty to Russia and isolate their economy from important political and trade links to the West … and Yanukovych knows this, and will have to fight hard to achieve international legitimacy, independent of Russia, if he hopes to stick around for very long (plus the Rada is going to be absolute chaos for whomever wins).

After the jump, a few of the reasons why Kiselyov thinks that a Yanukovych victory does not exactly translate into Russian control over Ukraine.