The ball is in Putin's court

Some people saw symbolic value in the gold medal won by the Ukrainian women's biathlon team at the Winter Olympics, edging out the Russian squad. Russian President Vladimir Putin would have been able to live with it, were it not for the Ukrainian parliament almost simultaneously deposing, in almost unanimous fashion, his ally, President Viktor Yanukovych.

The masses in Kiev undoubtedly succeeded in ruining Putin's closing ceremony, which on Sunday will conclude these extremely expensive Olympic Games. Putin never dreamed that while he was preparing the Olympics for us, Ukraine would renew the Cold War between Russia and the West.

As of now, Yanukovych has escaped to the "Russian" side of Ukraine; while the new parliament has deposed him from office with a massive majority vote (328 out of 450) and set a date for new elections.

Yulia Tymoshenko, 53, the symbol of the 2004 "Orange Revolution," returned to Kiev's Independence Square. The woman who became rich in the 1990s off of Russian gas and served twice this past decade as prime minister, became a main symbol of the fight between West and East over the identity of Ukraine. Since her arrest in 2011 (after losing to Yanukovych in a very close election race in 2010) on corruption charges, the European Union has tried getting the elegant prisoner with the blond braids released from prison, primarily due to her deteriorating health. Here, too, the EU failed. In less than a week, however, the tens of thousands of protesters in Kiev succeeded where the EU had failed for three years. But the Tymoshenko of 2014 is not as orange as she was in 2004; she is more stained with an endless list of misdoings and the bad management of Ukraine.

Even if it is tempting to think the pro-Western camp won, things are not that simple. Ukraine, which is on the brink of bankruptcy, is almost completely dependent on Russia, which promised it a loan of $15 billion and has already transferred it $3 billion. Moreover, Russia also lowered by a third the cost of gas it provides Ukraine, which needs it like oxygen.

For their part, the Russians are also struggling to let go of Ukraine -- for historical and cultural reasons, because the Russian navy docks in the Black Sea, and also because its gas exports to Europe pass through Ukraine. Additionally, Putin's dream of presiding over a new Eurasian empire does not include conceding Ukraine to the West. For the Russians, it is enough that they have already lost the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. There is a limit.

And what about Yanukovych? At 63, the president chose to manage the crisis as if he were that same 18-year-old brute convicted of theft and gang rape. Today he is accused by the court (of half the people) of killing protesters. He has truly earned the square's demand to see him jailed or exiled. Even if Moscow does not hold him in especially high regard, and is even furious at him for the clumsiness with which he managed the crisis during the Sochi games, it still hasn't had the last word and will try saving -- perhaps not him specifically, but at least the pro-Russian line he represents.

We also have not forgotten that the nationalists in the West of the country can still ruin the democratic celebrations.

There is no question that the Ukrainian story has for years been one of helplessness; not only on the part of Yanukovych, but of the opposition, the EU, Washington and even the Russians, who struggled to work with the outgoing president.

Only a few weeks ago, the Europeans were talking about a strategic agreement with Moscow, and now perhaps they see the possibility of establishing a new Yugoslavia, perhaps in the middle of the continent.

The Winter Olympics are coming to an end tonight, but the real cold front is about to set in.

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