There's an election taking place today that has the expansionist Russian Federation's interest. Its neighbor Ukraine is electing a president for a 5-year term, pitting incumbent Petro Poroshenko against a popular entertainer / comic Volodymyr Zelensky. Poroshenko was elected in 2014 after the pro-Russian stooge Viktor Yanukovich was ousted in a popular uprising. Since then, Ukraine has been dealing with Russian forces who invaded Crimea and the eastern part of their country and who are seeking to separate those regions from Ukraine and unite it with Russia, one of thug Vladimir Putin's top goals.
According to the most recent polling, Zelensky is favored to win, having dominated in the first round of voting several weeks ago with 39 candidates running. Politically, Zelensky is untested and unknown, although after Russia invaded Ukraine, he helped raise resources to fund a volunteer battalion to fight the Russia-backed forces, and has been a vigorous critic of endemic corruption in the Ukranian government and espouses "economic liberalism."
One constant going forward will be Russia's continued meddling in Ukraine, using force as needed. Their illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region following Yanukovich's ouster in 2014 signaled that their ultimate goal was the reincorporation of Ukraine into a Soviet-style "greater Russia." Whomever is elected, with the backing of the western alliance, Ukraine needs to hold firm against Putin's aggression.
UPDATE: Zelensky's elected apparently by a wide margin.
(photo: Zelensky, left, and Poroshenko. AFP/EPA)
