Putin Gambles Big--and Loses

AS THIS ARTICLE goes to press, it remains uncertain who will emerge the winner of Ukraine's presidential election. The official tally favored Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich by 3 percentage points, but momentum is with opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko, whom exit polls showed to be the actual winner. All credible electoral monitors denounced the vote as fraudulent, as did even one election commission official.

Tens of thousands of Yushchenko supporters remain mobilized on the streets of Kiev. The Ukrainian parliament has swung behind Yushchenko, the Supreme Court has annulled the election and called for a new vote, some of the prime minister's supporters have defected, and the guys with the guns have sent mixed signals about whether they would obey orders to repress the demonstrators.

Yet, the ancien régime has not given up. Pro-Yanukovich governors in eastern Ukraine have threatened to secede, and the lame duck president, Leonid Kuchma, is trying to secure constitutional amendments that would weaken presidential power as a condition of allowing a new election. If the stalemate drags on, the demonstrators' mood could shift, towards either radicalism or disappointment.

Whoever wins, Russian president Vladimir Putin is a clear loser. No matter what the endgame, Putin has suffered a serious setback because of the way he tried to deal with his most important neighbor. Putin's behavior has weakened Russia's influence in strategic Ukraine and damaged the Russian president's reputation in the West. It should call into question the Bush administration's embrace of the Kremlin leader.

Putin fancies himself a foreign policy pragmatist, adept at defending Russian national interests in a rational, dispassionate manner. In Ukraine, however, he has been exposed as a leader still driven by outdated ideological constructs like "spheres of influence" and "East versus West." The result is Putin's greatest foreign policy disaster since he took office four years ago.

In Ukraine, Putin made his first aggressive attempt to consolidate "managed democracy"--his advisers' term for Russia's new regime-type-- in another country. Hoping to prevent a democratic breakthrough like those in Serbia in 2000 and Georgia in 2003, Putin's administration orchestrated a giant effort, first to aid Yanukovich's electoral campaign, then after the vote to blur the world's understanding of the results. (Kuchma's own government needed no technical assistance from Russia to carry out the actual fraud--adding votes to precincts, some of which then reported 100 percent turnout, with over 90 percent voting for Yanukovich.)

Campaign consultants tied to the Kremlin set up shop in Kiev, millions of Russian rubles poured into the Yanukovich war chest, and Putin personally visited Ukraine twice to campaign for the prime minister. On Election Day, Russia sent its own observer mission, which pronounced--surprise, surprise--the vote free and fair. Putin congratulated Yanukovich on his victory well before the official results were released.

But this effort was all for nothing. Putin's advisers accurately foresaw that Yushchenko and his supporters would protest the stolen election, and they expected some perfunctory criticism from mid-level diplomats in the West. But they also calculated that Ukrainian protesters would eventually go home to escape the cold. And they reasoned that the West, especially the Bush administration, would soon forget about the fraud, as more important issues like the war on terrorism resumed their rightful place at center stage.

Putin's advisers were wrong, about both Ukrainian democrats and Western leaders. The opposition had prepared for this moment for years. Within hours of the announcement of the fraudulent results, Yushchenko supporters were pouring into the streets, ready to stay for the long haul. Then, as if in concert, every democratic government in the world refused to recognize the result. Secretary of State Colin Powell stated categorically, "We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse."

NOW THAT PUTIN'S ATTEMPT to wield "soft power" in Ukraine has backfired, there are no good outcomes for Russia.

If Yushchenko eventually becomes president, the setback for Putin is obvious. Remember, the candidate for whom Putin aggressively campaigned has a criminal record (robbery and assault) and is closely tied to corrupt oligarchic networks in the southeastern city of Donetsk, whose surrogates tried to poison Yushchenko to get him out of the race. After Putin's intervention, a President Yushchenko would have every right to adopt anti-Russian policies.