It has taken four months of fraught, inconclusive and – for Ukraine’s friends and neighbours – often infuriating negotiations to produce a Coalition of National Unity to rule in Kiev. By bringing together the parties of Viktor Yushchenko, the president who was co-leader of the Orange Revolution in January 2005, and Viktor Yanukovich, the Russian-speaking rival whom he defeated in bitterly contested elections, it looks like a marriage of opposites with little chance of survival. Yet it may prove the most stable solution for a country that is bitterly divided between the factions they represent.

The deal they have done will leave all the major economics ministries in the hands of Mr Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions and all the principal “power” ministries, such as defence, foreign affairs and the interior, controlled by Mr Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine. It is a pragmatic solution that recognises the reality that the president is responsible for defence and foreign policy, whereas Mr Yanukovich’s party emerged from parliamentary elections last March as the single largest.