"Why did Putin feel the need to derail the election?" -- Putin did not derail the election.
There are those who would disagree. Yushchenko supporters have been pretty vehement in denouncing the Yanukovych camp, alleging all sorts of fraud, including ballot-box stuffing, importing busloads of non-residents (from Russia) to vote, campaign funding anomalies, media manipulation, etc, etc. They believe that this was done with the acquiescence if not the active participation of the Russian government, and the buck stops on Putin's desk.
"Why do people in different regions support Yushchenko and not Yanukovych, and vice-versa?" -- vote for Yuschenko is a vote against corrupt regime, for nationalism. Vote for Yanukovich is a vote for "our guy", against nationalism. Hence the geographical division.
Again, this is an oversimplification. Elections are about power. Who stands to gain? Who's pulling the strings? Granted, the Kuchma regime is/was extremely corrupt, and it is quite possible that a Yanukovych regime will continue in the same manner, but it is also possible that it wouldn't. Likewise, there is nothing but a rhetorical guarantee that a Yushchenko regime wouldn't be just as corrupt. I rather suspect it is simply a matter of exchanging one set of oligarchs for another. Sadly, pretty well all the regimes in the former USSR have become addicted to corruption.
"Why is the western media presenting the story as simplistically as they do" -- you make it sound as if it's being done accidentally or due to incompetence. To me, it looks likes it's a case of deliberate prevarication.
Well, there may be an element of prevarication at some levels, but to my mind it is more a case of incompetence, ignorance of the issues involved, laziness in choosing not to delve into the underlying issues, and an unwillingness on the part of editors to offer the general viewing public anything more substantial than what a high-school dropout could understand in under sixty seconds. It appears to me that they view their audience with more than some contempt, and I find it all too easy to look at the media the same way. In my experience, I have found that many people are comfortable with words of more than two syllables, but I guess I must move in different circles than reporters and editors.
Anyway, I am grateful for the Internet. Yes, one must read carefully and not take everything at face value, but there is almost always a spectrum of opinion and presentation of events that make it possible to see beyond the populist pap served up by the mass media.
Cheers
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