Strongman, The

which had invested so much in trying to ensure a fair election, had to decide what to do in the face of such apparently blatant manipulation. The secretary of state, Colin Powell, recalled in an interview: ‘I came into the office while all this was unfolding and called in my team, and I said, “Look, this is too big. We cannot simply stand by and say nothing and put out mealy-mouthed statements.” ’ He went down to the press room and made a statement that set Washington at odds with Moscow: ‘We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse.’
    On his way back from his Latin American trip, President Putin stopped in at The Hague for a summit with EU leaders, where he picked up the gauntlet. ‘We have no moral right to push a big European state into any kind of mass disorder,’ he said. ‘We should not allow the resolution of such conflicts through mob rule to become part of international practice.’
    Behind the scenes, it seems that Putin was advising Kuchma to get a grip and clear the crowds from the streets. Asked about it in an interview, Kuchma admitted: ‘Putin is a hard man. It wasn’t like he was saying directly, “Put tanks on the street.” He was tactful in his comments. But there were some hints made, that’s no secret.’ The hints were evidently rather heavy, and Kuchma had to insist: ‘I will not use force to clear demonstrators from the Maidan. Because I know there are children there, and it’s obvious how it would end.’ 8
    On the Friday, five days after the election, the EU mission arrived in Kiev, led by Kwa ś niewski and the EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. But as a million Yushchenko supporters waited patiently in the streets, some 40,000 miners from Yanukovych’s heartland, Donetsk, were marching on Kiev. Kwa ś niewski told Kuchma: ‘What are you saying? This means a massacre! I am telling you that if this happens I go straight to the airport with Solana, and we will hold a huge press conference in Brussels where we will accuse you of starting a civil war in Ukraine.’
    Kuchma took the necessary measures to prevent disaster. ‘I have leverage with influential people,’ he recalled later. ‘We just managed to stop them.’
    Before the mediation talks began Kuchma put through a call to President Putin in Moscow to stress that the Round Table must have a Russian representative present. Putin proposed sending Boris Yeltsin, which sounded like a joke to Kwa ś niewski. He told Kuchma: ‘Listen, I’m sorry, but I can’t treat this seriously, because much as I appreciate Yeltsin and I enjoyed working with him, we want to have serious talks, not a show.’ 9
    Putin sent a trusted functionary instead – Boris Gryzlov, a former interior minister and chairman of the State Duma, whom Putin had just made head of his party, United Russia. Gryzlov’s contribution to the talks was scarcely more productive than Yeltsin’s might have been. Yushchenko says the tension was overpowering. ‘I knew I was the last person Russia wanted as president. These falsifications, the way the Russians were taking an interest, their slanted position during the election, this interference in Ukrainian internal affairs ... it was obvious to all.’
    Gryzlov’s starting point, according to Kwa ś niewski, was that Yanukovych was president, and that all the stories about irregularities were a waste of time, stirred up by foreign forces. There was nothing to talk about and the Round Table made no sense.
    Yushchenko and Yanukovych each accused the other of rigging the vote in different constituencies. Someone suggested that overall the vote wasn’t forged by more than 10 per cent. Kwa ś niewski says he looked at him and said: ‘Okay, put that in your constitution, then – that if an election is not forged by more than 10 per cent, it’s valid!’ Gryzlov then referred to the US presidential election of 2000, when the final outcome depended on hanging chads and a recount in Florida, and suggested that, like the Americans, they should just accept an apparently flawed result and agree to it. ‘Let’s stick with the constitution.’
    There was stalemate in the talks. Kwa ś niewski knew that only one man could break the deadlock. He asked the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, to talk to Putin. ‘I said: “You know Putin. Tell him – if