Written by: Beck

Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone to great lengths to back Ukrainian kleptocratic candidate Viktor Yanukovych against challenger Viktor Yushchenko. Got all that?

Putin hasn't hesitated to butt heads with pro-Yushchenko forces in Western Europe and North America, and he's spent quite a bit of political capital trying to do everything in his power to bring about a Yanukovych victory.

With the December 26 Supreme Court ordered re-vote coming, everything suggests that Yushchenko should win easily, barring massive fraud or a military coup. What everyone's worried about is that last bit, and the likeliness of that to happen is directly related to the likelihood that Putin decides to provide political cover. That's why this relatively innocuous article is so significant.

But in a conciliatory gesture, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has strongly backed Ukraine's prime minister, said Tuesday that he could work with an administration headed by Yushchenko, a former prime minister and head of the Central Bank.

"We have worked with him already and the cooperation was not bad," Putin said during a visit to Germany. "If he wins, I don't see any problems."

In other words, it's wide open in Ukraine, and Putin has been forced to back down from a highly unpopular position in a nation which he considers to be entirely within Russia's sphere of influence.