A historic moment has arrived on the chestnut tree-lined streets of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, where the mass protests over last week’s rigged elections are growing daily.

The Ukrainian regime seems determined to hang on to power. It officially declared the victory of its candidate despite ample evidence of serious vote fraud, confirmed by international observers. Behind the regime is neighboring Russia, which blatantly interfered in this election and rushed to embrace the supposed victor even before the votes were officially tallied.

The danger of violence hangs over the country. Western governments, from Washington to Berlin, are torn between supporting democracy in Ukraine and maintaining good relations with Vladimir Putin. They fear an escalation to civil war.

The outcome of this crisis will tell us whether Ukraine, a nation of 50 million that stands at the boundary between East and West in Europe, will be a democracy in fact, not just in form.

It may deepen Russia’s own retreat from the rule of law and feed the dreams of those who believe greatness lies only in recreating a lost Soviet empire.

Finally, the Ukrainian crisis threatens to draw a new dividing line between East and West. If Europe and the United States falter in defense of democracy, it will signal to tens of millions looking on from the former republics of the Soviet Union that they must bow again to mother Russia.

The Ukrainian vote pitted Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych against former premier Viktor Yushchenko. The contest reflected deep divisions among Ukrainians, between the Russian-speaking population in the east and south which tends to favor the government and the more nationalist, pro-opposition sentiments found in western and central Ukraine.

The Russian media depicted this election as a shadow struggle with the West. Russian officials now warn against Western “interference” in the unfolding events.

“This is the first time since the end of the Soviet Union that the interest of Russia and the interest of the west clashed so openly,” Vyacheslav Nikonov, a Russian analyst close to the Kremlin, told the Financial Times. “The west is not used to a strong Russian state pursuing its interests. Let them get used to it.”

Moscow has real, even legitimate, geopolitical interests at stake in Ukraine. But sadly the Russian elite seems blind to the idea that they are better served by a democratic and a friendly but independent Ukraine than by such a crude use of their muscle to prevent an outcome they do not like.

A discredited election only sends a message to the Russian people and others in the former Soviet Union that theirs is an empty democracy, not much better than the phony votes carried out in Soviet days. It will only serve to isolate Russia from Europe, where its future really lies.

A decade ago, Russian reformer Yegor Gaidar warned that “we should finally learn what country we live in. Our country is not a ‘fragment of empire,’ not a temporary formation. We have no dreams about reunifying all the republics of the former Union at our expense.”

Unfortunately, the behavior of Moscow in Ukraine is proof that those dreams persist. As in London, Paris and Washington, the idea of empires, old and new, dies hard.

I witnessed the rebirth of Ukrainian independence more than a decade ago as a correspondent covering the former Soviet Union. At that time the Russians simply couldn’t understand why their Slavic brothers would want to separate themselves.

Over the last decade, Moscow has increasingly flexed its muscles and cultivated close ties with the current regime in Kiev. That regime emulated its big brother in trying to create a “managed democracy,” in which bureaucrats, oligarchs and corrupt police rule.

But Ukraine is not yet Russia. Its historic divisions have kept a strong opposition alive, including within the parliament, the courts and perhaps the military. While Ukrainians know they depend on ties to Russia, they bristle at being ruled from Moscow.

There is still time to find a peaceful way out of this crisis. The Ukrainian Supreme Court could restore the rule of law. If that fails, everyone, Ukrainians and Russians first of all, will pay a terrible price.

— Daniel Sneider is foreign affairs columnist for the San Jose Mercury News.