On Sunday, Ukrainians will go to the polls to elect a new Parliament. In a snap election called only a year and a half after the last one, voters will be faced with a familiar choice: either President Viktor Yushchenko's bloc, that of his erstwhile political ally Yulia Timoshenko, or Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich's Party of the Regions. Many in the West believe that this contest is merely a rerun of the Orange Revolution, when the Yushchenko-Timoshenko team prevailed against Yanukovich in what was seen as a bloodless coup against the old regime.

But they are wrong. The latest public opinion polls suggest that Yanukovich will be returned to power, inevitably prompting officials in Washington and European capitals to wonder, "Who lost Ukraine?"