Ukraine faced a fateful choice on Sunday: not just between two sharply opposed candidates in a presidential election runoff, but between two political systems. Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko promised a genuine liberal democracy along Western lines, while Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych represented those forces that, backed by a neo-imperial Russia, would rule this large European nation through force and fraud.

The US yesterday warned Ukraine of the repercussions of rigging its presidential election, but at the same time stepped back from an open confrontation with Russia over the crisis.

A drama of considerable importance to Western interests is playing out between Russia and the former republics of the Soviet Union that may determine whether these newly-independent countries survive as sovereign states oriented toward democracy and freedom or are pressured into renewed Russian suzerainty.

The situation in Egypt appears to be somewhere between that of Tiananmen and that of Ukraine.

The world has been inspired by the remarkable images emanating from Ukraine in recent months. We have watched as Ukrainians by the hundreds of thousands converged on Kiev"s Independence Square to preserve their freedom and safeguard their right to determine the destiny of their nation.

Even as the political crisis in Ukraine has wound down, democratic leaders from Kiev to Washington have begun to think about how Belarus might be transformed.

Can Europe's velvet revolution claim another prize? When Ukrainian demonstrators on the frozen streets of Kiev place flowers in the perforated metal shields of their country's riot police, they are sending us two desperate yet dignified messages: "We want to join Europe" and "We want to do this in a European way".

Oleksandr Potiekhin, Boudewijn Van Eenennaam, Daniel Fried, Radek Sikorski, Martin Palous, Boguslaw Winid ...