Steering Away From the Rocks

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A Ukraine expert says the next president must act fast to right the listing ship of state. A TOL podcast. by Andy Markowitz 15 January 2010

Wilson

Since Viktor Yushchenko swept to Ukraine's presidency five years ago, the country has lurched from crisis to crisis, with political instability magnifying the effect of the economic crisis. Now the public is poised to repudiate Yushchenko – and, by extension, his aspirations for a more Europe-leaning Ukraine – in favor of Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin favorite whose fraud-tainted victory in the 2004 election triggered the Orange Revolution.

Ahead of Sunday's first round of presidential balloting, TOL talked to Andrew Wilson, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, about the tarnished legacy of the Orange Revolution and what the next president must do to get the country on a sounder footing.

The interview was conducted on Friday, 8 January. You can listen to the conversation on the player below or download it by right-clicking here.

Andy Markowitz is TOL's multimedia editor. Home page photo of a 2004 Kyiv protest by M.A. Cholewicz.

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