Blue &Yellow: Politics and Economics in Ukraine

Bloomberg sees the recent agreement as a blow against Putin's "nemesis"Viktor Yushchenko.  It argues that the president was shut out of negotiating the gas deal, while Tymoshenko ran things on the Ukrainian side. This made him look "ineffectual" by "marginalizing" the president, even though the piece notes his very low approval ratings. Another interpretation that the piece touches on: Putin made a deal with the most relevant political leader in Ukraine. Yushchenko was already politically weak, he failed to break the coalition (his party rejoined it) and backed out of early elections because of the economic crisis. The Kyiv Post's piece on Yushchenko suggests a recent political decline, but also that he was a different man during the Orange Revolution. 

After becoming president in 2005, Yushchenko surprised many with behavior more reminiscent of Kuchma than of the anti-corruption “clean team” of Yushchenko and sidekick Tymoshenko.

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Perhaps to compensate for these weaknesses, Yushchenko replaced Rybachuk as chief of staff in 2006 with hardliner  Victor Baloha, a political pit bull and former confidant of Victor Medvedchuk, Kuchma’s chief of staff.

Rybachuk believes Baloha’s appointment was one of the president’s major mistakes. Leonid Kravchuk, the first president of independent Ukraine, who served from 1991-1994, agrees: “Instead of working with foes to achieve results, Yushchenko sunk to the low depths by getting tangled in relentless political wrestling matches.”