Abstract
Ukraine faced a hard time in its orientation in the west and also in Europe. Since its independence from the Soviet Regime in 1991, the process of democratization and establishing a market economy stalled, under the semi-authoritarian and the corrupt President Kuchma. It lasted more than a decade until the pro-reformist candidate Yushchenko came to power after having lost a first presidential election that was riddled with fraud. The reformist Orange Revolution sparked peaceful street demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in favor of Yushchenko, finally leading to a second election that he won. Europe and the western society were quite impressed by the will of the Ukrainian people to resist on holding fair elections and on striving for its civil rights.
