I'll admit I'm no expert in the goings on of the former Soviet satellite states, but this doesn't sound good. Bloomberg reports:

Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych took the lead in voting from yesterday's run-off presidential election as his challenger Viktor Yushchenko charged the poll was marred by fraud.

With about 74 percent of ballots counted, Yanukovych leads with 48.9 percent while Yushchenko has 47.5 percent, the Central Electoral Committee said in a statement on its Web site

``I don't trust the counting by the committee,'' Yushchenko said in a statement on his official Web site. ``That leads me to a conclusion that a state coup in Ukraine has already started. It has started in Donetsk region, in Yanukovych's camp.''

Exit polls from yesterday's voting said Yushchenko won the election. His supporters said they will begin gathering in Independence Square in the center of the capital, Kiev, from 9 a.m. Ukraine time today.

Yushchenko won 39.9 percent in the first round on Oct. 31, squeezing ahead of Yanukovych's 39.3 percent. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe criticized the first round for media bias toward Yanukovych. Yushchenko's supporters said there will be street protests across the country of 47 million people if the government delays the election results.

Yushchenko, a former prime minister, said turnout in the Donetsk region, where Yanukovych was a former governor, may soon reach 110 percent.

Yanukovych supporters said they counted 81 percent of the vote in so-called parallel counting and Yanukovych won 50 percent with Yushchenko having 46 percent. Yushchenko supporters said they counted 57.4 percent of votes, with their candidate receiving 52.8 percent and Yanukovych 42.3 percent.

The only thing I do know about the situation is that President Bush has become quite cozy with former-KGB official and current Russian Premier Vladimir Putin, a man who has overseen Russia's regression into Communism (or at least the move back towards the Communist apparatchik). Yanukovych embodies this old guard that the current Russian government supports in all of its neighboring states, and it's immensely dangerous for the United States and the entire world for these men to maintain power in the region (especially given the fact that there are thousands of nuclear arms in the area).

Because of political expediency in pursuit of reelection, Bush teamed up with these anti-Democratic (and possibly Communist) leaders like Putin to help in the "War on Terror." The real problem is that by buying these nations off and turning a blind eye to the attrocities that some have committed, we are enabling the creation of a problem that could be substantially worse than Iran and Iraq combined.