"Is the Ukraine even capable of independence?"
I couldn't believe my eyes when I read this comment. This is from FReepers?
Go there and live there like I did. Wake up every day to an orphan knocking on your door, begging for bread. Deal with the bureaucrats, cops, alcoholics and other urody. Live in a fifth-floor walk-up in a city that hasn't had running water since 'independence'.
Ukraine as a nation makes even Russia look good. Which is why one million Ukrainians work there.
Both Yanukovich and Yushchenko are long-time government insiders. They are responsible for turning a bread basket into a basket case, an industrial giant into a fourth-world nation where PhDs sell windowbox parsley and sunflower seeds on the street corner, and retirees commit suicide rather than starve on their generous $10 a month pensions.
Neither Yanukovich nor Yushchenko will make any difference in the Ukraine, and the sooner the US realizes it doesn't have a dog in this fight, the better.
I've been posting translations about the Ukraine on this site for almost six years. You probably did not notice these during your four weeks on the site.