After describing some of the election fraud tactics and explaining that some local authorities seem to have pledged their allegiance to Mr (President) Yushchenko, the Ukrainian author Andrij Bondar writes in today’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (the English is my translation of the German translation of his article) –

It’a a draw. The European Union and the United States have declared the elections to have been forged, Russia has recognized Mr Yanukovich as legitimate President, Kuchma remains silent. It is not the first time in history that Ukraine is torn between East and West, between Russia and Europe, between totalitarianism and democracy. In these days, her future will be decided. More urgently than ever, we are in need of the moral and political support of the world’s democracies. If we gamble away Ukraine today, already tomorrow you will have to forget your sated and conflict-free Europe. Because Ukraine is Europe, or rather, in the words of the writer Andrzej Stasiuks: She is your European subconscious. The weather forecast is announcing snow and frost for Ukraine. But no one is willing to forcast if the blood of innocents will be shed tomorrow. We are still all alive. Still.