Significantly trailing in the polls for the repeated Presidential election on December 26, the Ukrainian “establishment candidate” Victor Yanukovych, declared today that reports about his urging the use of violence are wrong. According to the BBC -
Mr Yanukovych says he merely urged Mr Kuchma to restore order according to the constitution. ‘This information is false. [...]

The Financial Times has an interesting article about how the Ukrainian government did consider the use of force against the protestors, but eventually backed down, mainly because President Kuchma blocked it.
Those lobbying for the use of force included senior officials, among them Viktor Medvedchuk, the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration and Viktor Yanukovich, the [...]

UPDATE: (18:02 CET) I just removed the question mark behind the headline! Yushenko’s lawyers were dressed for success: According breaking agency reports, Ukraine’s Supreme Court, after five days of hearing, just ruled that the disputed presidential election officially won by Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich is invalid. Moreover, the court has not just backed Mr [...]

Or the idea that while Russia can bring hundreds of millions of goodies for Kuchma and Yanukovych, the European Union, Poland and other countries to the west have things to offer too.
One publication from Ukraine sees the conference we mentioned as evidence that Germany has been plotting a coup in Kiev. (The URL in the [...]

I’ve just got time for a quick roundup of the latest developments in Ukraine.
First, and most importantly, the Supreme Court has suspended publication of the election result while it considers the case brought to it by Yuschenko. This is probably more routine than a sign of any clear intent on the part of the Court, [...]

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has addressed the Ukrainian situation in a statement. He said the US does not accept the results of the election. Reuters has a summary (check the State Department website later for a full transcript):
Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday the United States did not accept the results [...]

I’m starting a new post for the latest information as the old one was starting to get a bit long. The session in Parliament has broken up as there were 191 deputies there, but 226 (50%+1) were required for a quorum, so no action could be taken. However, the Kyiv Post reports that Yushchenko has [...]