Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Russia avoided taking sides for now on the Ukraine vote after results gave opposition leader Victor Yanukovych a slim victory over Yulia Tymoshenko on Monday. MOSCOW, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Russia avoided taking sides for now on the Ukraine vote after results gave opposition leader Victor Yanukovych a slim victory over Yulia Tymoshenko on Monday but it made clear that any candidate was an improvement on the "anti-Russian" incumbent.

Moscow has a lot at stake in the election. Around 80 percent of its gas exports flow through Ukraine, many ethnic Russians live there and the Kremlin wants to avoid a major neighbour joining NATO and drifting away from Russian influence. Russia's leaders seemed keen to avoid repeating their gaffe of 2004, when Moscow prematurely congratulated pro-Russian candidate Yanukovych on an election victory later overturned as fraudulent by street protests and court action.

Neither Russian President Dmitry Medvedev nor the country's most powerful political leader, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had said anything about this year's election by early Monday afternoon, even though Yanukovych was on course for a slender victory.

Russia's approach shows it has learnt there's no easy way to deal with Kyiv, said Sam Greene of the Moscow Carnegie Centre.

"Canonising one candidate at the expense of the other in Kyiv just doesn't work. I think that Moscow has learned that, as has Washington and Brussels," he told Reuters.

"For Moscow, it's going to be a difficult, but necessary relationship with Kyiv and that goes for either of the candidates," he said.

Kremlin-controlled state television channels reported the election in a sober, factual fashion, noting Yanukovych's slender margin of victory according to official figures and giving airtime to statements by both candidates.

Yanukovych's Party of the Regions is allied to the Kremlin's United Russia party but Moscow has not publicly backed either Yanukovych or his opponent Yulia Tymoshenko.

She has mended fences with Putin after leading mass protests in 2004 at the country's post-Soviet leaders, whom she accused of being under Moscow's control.

Ahead of this year's two-round Ukraine vote, Putin has emphasised the fraternal bonds between Yanukovych's party and United Russia but stopped short of endorsing him at Tymoshenko's expense.

Tymoshenko still tries to paint Yanukovych as a stooge to Moscow, though both candidates insist they will seek to improve relations with Moscow that deteriorated sharply under the outgoing president Victor Yushchenko.

"Moscow is already pleased by these elections, because once Yushchenko didn't get through to the second round, they were happy. Russia thinks it can work with either Tymoshenko or Yanukovych," a Ukrainian official told Reuters before Sunday's vote.

Some Russian media were less circumspect.

Under a headline titled "Orange sunset", the pro-Kremlin daily Izvestia wrote that with the departure of Yushchenko, his "ideological distortions" -- Moscow-speak for "anti-Russian positions" -- would also end.

"We expect that it's most likely that Yanukovych will win, his position is more pro-Russian. But may also reach agreement with Tymoshenko, the main thing is that there will be no president, with an anti-Russian attitude - Yushchenko will not stay in office," Vedomosti business daily reported, quoting an unnamed Russian official.