For many in the United States and Europe, Ukraine's future had been bound up with the fate of a former prime minister with halolike braids who was jailed in an act of political retribution.
Freeing Yulia Tymoshenko, according to this view, would affirm Ukraine's commitment to the rule of law and democracy. Her release, it was said, would demonstrate Ukraine's fitness to enter an "association agreement" with the European Union and declare itself a Western nation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, had other plans.