Half of Ukrainians support independence for S.Ossetia, Abkhazia - poll

Just to show that things in Ukraine are more complicated than a lot of folks in the West would like to admit, a recent poll showed that half of the Ukrainians interviewed supported Russia's recognition of the independence of the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko has been one of the loudest critics of Russia over their recent conflict with Georgia; he even flew to Georgia's capital Tbilisi in a show of solidarity. He, of course, supports Georgia’s territorial integrity (in other words, he’s against independence for the two regions). Yushchenko has also been pushing for Ukraine's quick entry into NATO and the European Union.

But Yushchenko’s approval ratings are somewhere around the 10% mark and he is in real danger of suffering huge losses in the country's parliament if new elections need to be called (which is becoming more and more likely), so it might be a mistake to assume what Yushchenko wants and what the people of Ukraine want are one and the same.