Putin Opposes Repeat of the Ukraine Runoff

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said Thursday that a new Ukrainian presidential election should be open to a field of candidates, not merely be a runoff between the opposition leader and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.

Putin made the remarks during a brief meeting in Moscow with outgoing Ukrainian President Leonid D. Kuchma, who flew to the Russian capital.

The Russian president ridiculed the approach favored by opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, who is seeking a rerun of his Nov. 21 contest with Yanukovich, a vote that put the prime minister ahead but one widely regarded as fraudulent.

Saying that a rematch might prove inconclusive, Putin implied that the opposition wanted to keep holding elections until it won. “Will it require a third, a fourth, a 25th revote, until one of the sides gets the desired result?” he asked.

Putin had openly backed Yanukovich before the first round of balloting Oct. 31, which Yushchenko narrowly won among a field of 24 candidates. He has also rejected allegations by the United States and the European Union that the runoff was so marred by fraud that it could not be considered legitimate, describing their support for a revote as interference in Ukraine’s affairs.

But Putin’s power to affect the current situation appeared limited.

“Nothing depends on Putin anymore,” said Stanislav Belkovsky, general director of the National Strategy Council, a Moscow think tank. “The very fact that Kuchma arrived in Moscow at his first call allows Putin to try to prolong the illusion that he is still influencing events in Ukraine.

“But in his heart of hearts, Putin understands that Ukraine is a lost cause for him.”

The Russian president said in televised comments to Kuchma that foreigners could have only limited influence on the course of events in Ukraine.

“Neither Russia nor the European Union, nor international organizations for all their authority, can resolve this problem,” Putin said. “We can all play only the role of a mediator, but the final word should belong to the Ukrainian people.”

In Washington, President Bush also said that outsiders should limit their involvement.

“I think any election, if there is one, ought to be free from any foreign influence. These elections ought to be open and fair,” Bush said when asked about a possible repeat vote and the issue of Russian influence. “The position of our government is that the will of the people must be known and heard.”

Some observers said that a new two-round vote would prolong Kuchma’s tenure for several months. That extra time could give the government an opportunity to derail Yushchenko’s accelerating drive for the presidency, if it can find an attractive and well-financed candidate to replace the politically wounded Yanukovich.

Yushchenko told a festive rally in central Kiev on Thursday evening that the Supreme Court was poised to issue a ruling that would trigger a repeat of the runoff. Yushchenko’s supporters are confident that the opposition leader will win a rematch.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule within days on opposition allegations of fraud in the runoff, and its ruling will go far to determine how Ukraine’s political crisis might be resolved.

Yushchenko told his supporters that he would accept nothing less than a quick rematch with Yanukovich. He predicted that this would happen based on a Supreme Court legal interpretation that “the Nov. 21 election did not happen, due to falsification of the results.”

Midway through his 40-minute speech, Yushchenko switched from Ukrainian to Russian to address residents of eastern Ukraine, Yanukovich’s main base of support, where most people speak Russian.

The onetime prime minister, who commands wide support in the capital and the western part of the country, sought to dispel what he said were lies that authorities had spread about him. His words were an apparent effort to boost his electoral support for a rematch and promote a process of national reconciliation.

“Today they say Yushchenko is a threat to the east,” he said. “They are painting a number of myths.”

Among the key allegations, he said, are that as president he would close Russian-language schools, that he is against the Russian language and against the branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church most closely associated with Moscow, and that he would send people from western Ukraine to run local governments in the east.

“I give my word that it is not in my interests to close any school -- Greek, Jewish, Russian,” he declared. “It’s an issue for local authorities, the local community, local people.”

As for religious issues, “nobody, from this stage or any public officials, will ever say to anybody which church to go to,” he said.

“We understand that a person going to a synagogue or a mosque is not in any way worse than us,” he added. “We have to respect their choice.”

Citizens of Ukraine should know Ukrainian, he said, because “it is the native language,” but they should also know Russian, because “to the north of us is a strategic partner of Ukraine, the eternal northern neighbor called Russia.”

Although expressing confidence that a revote would be held, Yushchenko said that a peaceful resolution to the crisis was not yet assured.

“The force option was, is and will be one of the key scenarios for the actions of Kuchma and Yanukovich,” he said, and added that government authorities still “are looking for a pretext or a legal basis for use of force against the people.”

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Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko in Moscow contributed to this report.