Ukraine’s neighbours. A region transfixed

Every central European eye is watching

“THERE is a crisis in Ukraine - here in our neighbourhood,” Hungary's biggest-selling daily newspaper, Nepszabadsag, declared this week. It went on to ask: “Is Hungary prepared to accommodate people fleeing from Ukraine? What if Ukraine is torn in two? What if this leads to disruptions in energy supplies and gas shipments? Do Budapest officials have an emergency scenario for that case?”

Poland was similarly gripped. Lech Walesa, a former president and a founder of Solidarity, said he was “ready to mediate a decent solution” if Ukraine's outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, asked him. Either Ukraine should behave as a democratic country, Mr Walesa said, or “Russia will absorb it, as it has done with Belarus, and we will have the Soviet Union again, more dangerous this time.”

The crisis in Kiev dominated a summit on November 25th between the European Union and Russia. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, EU members since May, all have borders with Ukraine, as does Romania, which hopes to join the EU in 2007. These central Europeans have a special fellow-feeling for countries struggling to escape Russian influence, as many of them did successfully 15 years ago. Belarus and Ukraine are two of the three countries currently “in play” between the EU and Russia. The third, Moldova, has elections due in February which promise to be confused. The ruling Communist Party is shifting from a pro-Russian to a pro-EU line, while parts of the anti-Communist opposition are fishing for support in Moscow.

Romania was keeping relatively quiet about events in Kiev this week, perhaps preoccupied with its own elections on November 28th, the conduct of which may not prove entirely beyond reproach. Hungary has a special object of concern: the 150,000 or so ethnic Hungarians living in western Ukraine.

These and other minorities abroad may be offered Hungarian passports, if a referendum in Hungary on December 5th forces a change in citizenship laws. Poland, which has declared itself a “spokesman for the integration of Ukraine with NATO and the EU”, and which has just taken over the presidency of the Council of Europe, was calling for a recount in Kiev.

In Polish eyes, a rigged win for Victor Yanukovich would be the worst of all worlds. Even if Mr Yanukovich turned out to be more pro-western than his rhetoric suggested, his tainted legitimacy would limit the EU's scope to respond. Poles know Ukraine as a divided, fragile country, with an eastern half with ties to Russia and a western bit that was once Polish.

They believe that only the long-term prospect of full EU membership will be enough to win Ukraine away from Russia, and to bring stability to the EU's eastern flank. The EU has so far refused to make such an offer. This week's turmoil in Kiev will supply fresh arguments on both sides.

Even in Russia, there are a few who see the Kiev stand-off morally, not strategically. Hard-pressed Muscovite reformers, like Boris Nemtsov, back the liberal cause in Ukraine; they will suffer if there is a broader East-West stand-off.

Countries bordering on to the Ukraine such as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania (as well as Russia) are taking a close interest in what is happening in the Ukraine.

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