Strongman, The

it is highly likely that Markov’s apocalyptic view was shared by his masters in the Kremlin.
    At the same time, the Russians were fully aware that Yushchenko had a big chance of winning, and made strange undercover overtures to his team. Oleh Rybachuk was Yushchenko’s campaign chief, and future chief of staff. He says he received a call out of the blue from an old student friend whom he had not seen for 24 years. ‘When he called me I knew he was in the KGB. He suggested that I come to Moscow to meet people who were close to Vladimir Putin.’ 5
    Over the next month and a half Yushchenko’s adviser made weekly visits to Moscow, meeting ‘in dimly lit restaurants and speaking in whispers’. The Russians wanted to know what Yushchenko would do if elected. Rybachuk told them: ‘Our policies are simple. We want to be a democratic country, a European country. We want to be a NATO member for European security. When we come to power we won’t be a problem because you’ll know what to expect from us.’ It was hardly the reassurance the Kremlin was hoping for.
    On 5 September, just two months before election day, Yushchenko fell seriously ill after a dinner with the head of the Ukrainian security service. He took painkillers when he got home, but in the morning was feeling worse. Rybachuk recalls: ‘It was around ten in the morning and he said, “Let’s have this meeting fast because I feel really bad. Something’s not right.” ’ The cause of the pain could not be found and after three days Yushchenko was flown to a private clinic in Vienna where he was diagnosed with dioxin poisoning. The poison caused stomach ulcers, problems with his spleen and considerable disfigurement to his face.
    ‘I remember waking up in the clinic at 5.30 in the morning,’ Yushchenko recalled, ‘and half of my face was paralysed, and within three hours I could barely make a sound. I was losing my speech. Every morning I looked in the mirror and my face was getting bigger and bigger.’ 6
    For two weeks, Yulia Tymoshenko stepped into the breach, addressing rallies and blaming Yushchenko’s enemies for ‘cynically poisoning him’. When he finally returned to the campaign trail he was more popular than ever, the scars on his once handsome face visible proof of his enemies’ desperation. Thanks to Channel 5 – a television station owned by a wealthy businessman in Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party – his words were broadcast live to public squares across the country: ‘The last two weeks, dear friends, have been the most tragic in my life.’
    Moscow had to step up a gear now to promote its candidate, who was trailing in the opinion polls. On 9 October Putin invited Kuchma and Yanukovych to Moscow at short notice – to celebrate his recent birthday. The television coverage was designed to demonstrate how chummy they all were, in the hope that some of Putin’s stardust would land on Yanukovych’s dowdy shoulders.
    ‘Thank you for responding to my invitation to come at such short notice,’ Putin gushed. ‘It’s a good pretext.’
    ‘It’s a wonderful pretext,’ the Ukrainians gushed back. With the cameras still on him, Kuchma took the chance to sound presidentially ‘neutral’ while warning his countrymen back home that, as Eduard Shevardnadze might have said, the sun rises in the north: ‘When I am asked about our two main presidential candidates, I reply that for me it’s not so much a question of who but of what will be after the election. Which path will Ukraine take? The tried and tested one we have today, which has given results – even if our countrymen perhaps do not fully feel those results – or the path that will scupper everything that’s been done these past ten years, and put everything in doubt? I think our meeting [with Putin] will help to push things in the right direction.’
    Lest anyone was in any doubt, Putin then travelled to Ukraine for a three-day visit at the end of October – an unprecedented intervention right on the eve of the first round of the election. He did not need to do anything so crude as to publicly praise Yanukovych or disparage Yushchenko. His very presence was a reminder of what was most at stake in this election, and everyone knew who the pro-Russia candidate was. Putin began with a live interview simultaneously broadcast on three Ukrainian state television channels, to which viewers could phone in or email their questions. Over the next two days he held talks with the