To say that all these moves are carefully calibrated towards the next presidential election in 2009 or 2010 is a given. More interestingly, they also show that the presidency is still assumed by the key players to be the key prize, despite the constitutional reforms that shifted many powers to parliament in 2006. They also show that some changes in the rules of the game have stuck. Parliamentary elections are now decided by proportional representation, but all three major parties are thinking about the next step, of how to turn parliamentary pluralities into presidential majorities. In the Ukrainian context this can only be a good thing – if politics is centripetal rather than centrifugal and the key to success lies in the fight for the middle ground.

Ukraine itself is also a key prize, a battleground not just between Russia and the West, but also between two political cultures: one of political manipulation and “sovereign democracy,” and the other of the sometimes stifling formal democracy of the EU. The run-up to the next presidential election will give us more of an idea of which way it will eventually turn.