With their war-cry of “pora! pora!” (It’s Time! It’s Time!), tens of thousands of protesters continue to jam the center of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, to make sure that their candidate Viktor Yushchenko wins the third round of the presidential election to be held on Dec. 26.

The first round, held last October, proved inconclusive, forcing Yushchenko and his rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich into a second round. But when Yanukovich was declared the winner of that round, Yushchenko’s supporters, waving their orange banners, seized control of central Kiev, in a massive show of people’s power. Almost at the same time tens of thousands of others, including miners from the Donbass region, marched on Kiev to claim the presidency for their candidate, Viktor Yanukovich.

It was to avoid civil war that the Ukrainian Parliament decided to order a third round, although this is not foreseen either in the constitution or the electoral law. The showdown in Kiev, however, is not confined to the battle between the two Viktors over one victory. It has already dragged in Russia, the European Union, the United States and Ukraine’s neighbors on opposite sides. Ukraine has become the scene of a broader conflict with complex historical, political and religious roots and, depending on its outcome, ramifications beyond its frontiers. In a sense it may even be described as a clash, if not of civilizations, at least of rival visions of Europe.

Several facts show that this dispute is not simply about election fraud.

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not wait for the official results to be announced before congratulating the Russophile Yanukovich as the victor. At the other end of the spectrum, Washington and the EU decided not to wait for fraud allegations to be investigated through existing mechanisms. They decided that their favorite Viktor had won, and have served notice that they would not recognize any other result.

Although serious, the fraud allegations did not justify the perception created by the Western media that Yanukovich, the pro-Russian candidate, had no popular base. The problem is that both Viktors do have popular bases because they represent rival ethnic communities with different visions for Ukraine.

Ukraine is divided into two camps represented by the two Viktors. The Americans should have less difficulty understanding this as they saw their nation divided into “blue” (Democrat) and “red” (Republican) states in last November’s presidential election.

Always a divided country, Ukraine is characterized by geographical, historical, linguistic and religious fault-lines that baffle outsiders.

The most visible dividing line is the river Dnieper that, running through Kiev, bisects the country into a Right Bank and a Left Bank before emptying into the Black Sea at Kherson.

Covering the eastern half of the country, the Left Bank is mainly Russian-speaking and Orthodox Christian, with mining, traditional industries, and the military providing most of the jobs. The Right Bank, covering the western half, is mainly Ukrainian-speaking and Greek-Catholic, with a largely rural economy. Through much of history the eastern half was under Russian rule while the western half remained part of Poland and/or Austria for centuries.

The debate between Slavophiles and Westernizers that marked Russia in the 19th century also affected Ukraine. Slavophiles saw Russia as “The Third Rome”, chosen by God to rekindle the flame of true Christianity and conquer the world for the True Faith. Khomiakov, one of the leading ideologues of Slavophilia, saw Westernizers as “sick Russians, afflicted by a foreign disease more deadly than syphilis.”

Westernizers saw Russia’s future as part of a democratic and secular Europe. Herzen, a leading Westernizer, on the other hand, described Slavophiles as “fanatical leftovers of the Dark Ages.”

Yanukovich, campaigning for reunification with Russia and Belarus to create a big Slavic power to counterbalance the EU and the US, represents Slavophiles. Yushchenko, on the other hand, represents the Westernizers in their new dream of joining the European Union and NATO.

Many countries in the Muslim world are also interested in the outcome of the political battle in Kiev if only because Ukraine is the fourth biggest supplier of arms to them. The more radical Muslim regimes would prefer Yanukovich to win in the hope that a new anti-American bloc could emerge in Europe with Russia as its leader. It was no accident that Tehran immediately followed Moscow in congratulating Yanukovich on his “victory”, even before he himself had claimed it.

Slavophilia is the same ideology that led Slobodan Milosevic into imagining ex-Yugoslavia as the hard-core of a European alternative to a global system devised and dominated by the United States. Yanukovich is unlikely to end up where Milosevic ended, that is to say in front of the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague. But he has a strong chance of seeing his scalp nailed to the wall as another trophy in the ideological wars waged between rival visions of Europe and the world.

This does not mean that Yushchenko supporters are all pro-Western democrats. Many are more anti-Russian than pro-West. They remember that Ukraine paid the heaviest part of the human price that Stalin exacted for his de-Kulakisation program in the 1930s. They also take pride that Ukraine was the only part of he USSR where anti-Moscow armed resistance continued until the 1950s. But one must also remember that Ukraine provided the largest number of volunteers who joined the Nazis to fight the allies in 1941.

Yanukovich supporters, on the other hand, find it hard to see Ukraine making what looks like a complete break with Russia. After all Russia was born in Kiev and a good part of Russian literature and culture is the work of Ukrainians. Ukraine also depends on Russia for energy imports, markets, and security.

Ukraine is work in progress, an accidental country looking for an identity. Sandwiched between Russia and four NATO members it could become the vortex of a mini-Cold War.

Although the size of France and with a population of 50 million, Ukraine would not have become a geostrategic prize had it not been for its relations with Russia. Were it to rejoin Russia, which has restored part of its influence in a number of other former Soviet republics, it would help create the new Slav “superpower” dreamed by Putin.

Awash in oil revenues and embarking upon a new rearmament program, Russia is determined to put a halt to the eastward enlargement of the EU and NATO under American leadership. The drama in Ukraine poses a more important question: What should Europe do with Russia?

Small-Europeanists are determined to keep Russia out, in the same way as they are doing all they can to deny Turkey membership of the European Union.

Their attitude strengthens Slavophiles in Moscow and Kiev just as it encourages pan-Islamists in Ankara. But what about a Europe that extends from the Atlantic to the Urals, as Charles De Gaulle once envisaged? With Russia and Belarus in EU and NATO there would be no mini-Cold War in Ukraine. If we think of the big picture there would be no need for a new “ iron curtain” east or west of the Dnieper.