Daily Archives: November 29, 2004

The plot thickens in the Ukraine. 100,000 supporters of the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko occupy Kiev’s Independence Square in freezing cold protesting the defeat of their candidate by three percentage points. Yesterday, Ukraine’s Parliament gave a boost to their claims of election fraud by voting for annulling the election. Representatives of Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovich, the hand picked successor of outgoing president Lenoid Kuchma, are now in talks for some sort of non-violent settlement. Speculations range from a new election on December 12 to civil war to secession of Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions if Yushchenko takes power. Conspiracy theorists point to a CIA directed coup to put the pro-Western Yushchenko into power. According to one Moscow newspaper, such ideas are frequent among Putin’s advisors, who feel that the United States is meddling in Russia’s affairs. This is an especially popular idea since ..read more