Drop in U.S. aid hits democracy efforts in Ukraine, which heads to polls today

"Five years ago, it would have been no problem for a group to get money for democratic development," said Oleksandr Sushko, research director at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation. "Now people are having severe problems."

Ilko Kucheriv, director of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and an organizer of the national exit poll, said that even as the West has cut aid, Russia has been spending more to undermine the Ukrainian government and thwart reforms. "A democratic Ukraine wouldn't make them happy," he said.

Though the Bush administration cut aid to many former Soviet republics, shifting resources to Iraq and Afghanistan, the decline in Ukraine is striking because U.S. money had helped make the Orange Revolution possible in the first place. Russian officials go further, arguing that Washington essentially orchestrated and financed a coup.

In addition to supporting the exit poll, U.S. funds helped develop the network of grass-roots groups that later emerged at the forefront of the protest movement. It also financed training and exchange programs that exposed thousands of students, journalists and officials to Western political culture, including many of the judges and lawmakers who took a stand against the bid to fix the election.

Dysfunctional governance

But the momentum for change quickly dissipated after the Orange Revolution despite a one-year boost in U.S. funding. Ukraine today is a fragile and dysfunctional democracy, with free but sometimes corrupt media, courts vulnerable to bribes and political pressure, and weak political parties and policymaking institutions.

Yevgeny Bystritsky, director of the pro-democracy International Renaissance Foundation in Kiev, said U.S. and European leaders made the mistake of romanticizing the Orange Revolution leaders as democrats resisting Russian authoritarianism and did not pressure them to pursue political reforms.

"The problem is our politicians," he said, noting that Washington paid for experts to help craft a sweeping judicial reform bill only to see it stall in parliament because political leaders were unwilling to give up control of the courts. He argued that the West should attach more conditions and demand results in exchange for aid.

Others say there are limits to what Europe and the United States can do.

"Conditionality almost never works, and I'm not sure more money is going to make the difference either," said William Taylor, who pressed Kiev for reforms as the U.S. ambassador from 2006 to 2009. "I don't think you can bludgeon them to do things for their own good."

Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria said a "real possibility" of European Union membership for Ukraine would have done more to spur reform than any additional aid. He linked the success of democracy in neighboring Eastern European countries to the E.U. accession process.

"That strong anchor was and is absent for Ukraine," he said.

Still, he acknowledged that Europe was waiting "to see Ukrainian leaders who are serious" about reform.

American aid workers and Ukrainian activists say U.S.-backed programs have had successes despite the cuts, including a widely praised overhaul of the nation's college exam system. But a $45 million grant intended to reduce corruption ended recently with Ukraine failing to make enough progress to qualify for a bigger aid package.