The election of Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine"s...

Yanukovych, who won the February 7 presidential runoff over Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, said on the eve of his official visit to Moscow on March 5, that the depth of Ukraine"s ties with NATO would be "no deeper than Russia"s."

West-leaning ex-Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko bid unsuccessfully to bring Ukraine into NATO, an issue that soured relations between Kiev and Moscow.

"I think that the election of Yanukovych will end the conversation about Ukraine joining NATO for the foreseeable future ... Yanukovych is not a Kremlin puppet, by any means. He cannot afford to be if he hopes to maintain his political credibility at home. But Ukraine"s NATO bid will remain on hold for years to come," Bremmer said, adding that "talk of membership for Ukraine and Georgia was always a long-term issue."

"The U.S. and Europe have too much to lose in terms of stability along the former Soviet periphery from dramatically worsened relations with Russia. Neither country

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