Yanukovych's Party of Regions signed an agreement with the Communist Party and the Lytvyn bloc to form the coalition that includes 235 deputies from the 450-member Parliament.

Yanukovych, who is considered pro-Russian, named his longtime ally Mykola Azarov prime minister. A former finance minister for Ukraine, Azarov was born in Russia and has been in Ukraine since 1984. He succeeds Yulia Tymoshenko, the Orange Revolution hero who for the past weeks had been trying to challenge her election defeat to Yanukovych.

Dmitry Vydrin, a security policy adviser to Yanukovych, said Kiev's foreign policy under the new president would change from confrontational to pragmatic.

"Under (former President Viktor) Yushchenko, our country was issuing threats against others," Vydrin said this week in Berlin. "We were a failed state because our politicians failed."

Ukrainians for the past years had high hopes in the Orange Revolution leaders but with their internal quarreling they failed to stabilize the country's economy. Today, Ukraine is virtually bankrupt and its political system is marred by corruption.

Yushchenko's stark anti-Russian course helped Ukraine win new friends in Europe but alienated the country's Russian-speaking community.

Under the new president, Ukraine could become a key link between both worlds, said Alexei Plotnikov, a Ukrainian parliamentarian.

"Our goal is to become a binding and indispensable partner for the Europe of the future, a leading state between East and West," Plotnikov said in Berlin.

He said he hoped Kiev would eliminate the "ideological component" in Ukraine's foreign policy. At the same time, he urged Europe and Russia to wave goodbye to Cold War thinking and boost security cooperation.

"We should jointly fight against organized crime, terrorism and climate change," he said.

Alexander Rahr, a senior Ukraine expert with the German Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin think tank, said Yanukovych would try to make Ukraine a "self-sufficient country as a bridge between Russia and Europe," adding however, that this would require Ukraine to do some homework -- namely modernize its infrastructure.

While experts say it's unlikely that Ukraine will completely swing one way or the other, Kiev will have to choose between Europe and Russia in at least one aspect: The European Union offered Ukraine a free-trade agreement once it reopens negotiations for aid with the International Monetary Fund, plays by market rules, liberalizes its economy and drives out corruption.

Moscow has offered Kiev a similar pact -- a customs union with Russia and Belarus.

"From what experts say, Ukraine can't have both at the same time, so it will have to make a choice," said Ernst Reichel, a German Foreign Ministry expert for Russia and the neighboring countries. "It will be interesting to see which it will be going."

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