Ukraine has been slowly moving from communism /atheism to westernism /christianity in the past 12 years. There has been a huge revival of Christianity there since the fall of the Iron Curtain. This has been the trend in all the eastern European countries since the fall of the Iron Curtain, which greatly distinguishes them from the EU. The EU, because it is secular /socialist, has more in common with the old Soviets. Thus the Chirac - Schroeder - Putin axis.
The new European countries of Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, etc., and the Ukraine if Yushchenko succeeds, have more in common with the US than the EU, as they have already rejected the secularism/ socialism style of government, having lived under the USSR since the 50s, that the EU is so in love with.
People bashing Yushchenko here: the eastern Europeans have become our natural allies in Europe because they are more closely aligned with the US culturally and ideologically. They are socially conservative and very highly prize individual liberty and distrust big government. The Ukraine is poised for this also. But if Putin's guy gets in, that sets things back, because he is a central government control hardliner, a Moscow puppet. With Yushchenko, there is a chance for freedoms to keep progressing there.
About Soros: I think some people give him credit for more brains than he has. He just wasted 27 million on Kerry and couldn't see that it was a bad investment with no returns. How smart is that? Could it be he is backing Yushchenko JUST BECAUSE he is the anti-Russian candidate, as a Ukrainian himself? Do not think he can succeed in brainwashing the Ukrainian people to make them all the sudden love France and hate the US; the Ukrainians have expert BS and propaganda antennae honed through years of being force fed Soviet drivel. Soros couldn't succeed in brainwashing Americans either, and we are decidedly more gullible. But he is deluded enough to keep trying.
Listen, the Eastern Europeans have a chance to change the EU for the better as more and more of these countries get into the EU. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." I am not automatically anti-Yushchenko just because he is pro-EU, Poland wanted to join the EU too.
The folks sticking up for Yushchenko are all the usual suspects who we also saw cheering on the blood lust in Serbia/Kosovo - Ziggy Brezinski, Soros, Mad Halfbright, Colin Powell, etc., etc.
At least those folks are open about their agenda of cracking the nut of Orthodoxy, even if their "rah, rah" crowd in the US is not!
I find it especially distasteful, given the circumstances the Democrats created around Bush's two Presidential elections, for the Administration to go over to some foreign country and say because Yushchenko is playing Sore-Loserman, we reject your election results unless you declare the Sore-Loserman the winner. Rather like Putin or Chirac saying to us "we reject your election results unless you declare Gore/Kerry the winner".