I am, of course, following the events in Kyrgyzstan, but I can't claim much understanding of the situation.

Watching it all on the Russian TV is tricky - especially when one's familiar with their pathetic coverage of the Orange Revolution.

Still, I was pleased to see them interview a very nice protestor yesterday, someone I wouldn't mind standing next to at a rally: he was saying they weren't intending to resort to violence and would just stand there peacefully until Akayev flees.

Another thing that caught my eye was footage of the storming of the presidential palace: how lost one of the protestors looked, a middle-aged man, he was looking around, turning around without going anywhere, as everyone else rushed past him, and he seemed to have no idea what to do next and what he was doing in there in the first place. That was moving - I immediately imagined something like this happening in Kyiv and me somehow getting in the midst of it - I'd be totally lost and indecisive, too.

But then all this looting started, and five people are reported dead, and over 300 injured, and two Russian camera crews got attacked as they were filming the looters, and it just doesn't look good - and again I'm reminded of Ukraine, of how we were expecting something like this to happen, but it never did, thank God, and how we were all prepared for the curfew - some psychologically, others more practically - but again, it never happened... All thanks to our wonderful people.

As for the geopolitics of it all, I don't know much but it seems that Akayev's stakes were much higher: housing both a Russian and a U.S. military base in a pretty volatile region is a different type of balancing act than what Kuchma ever had to subject himself to.