MOSCOW Russia has been waiting for this moment for five years.

The presidential election in Ukraine is sweet revenge for Moscow after Russia's biggest ex-Soviet neighbour, encouraged by the West, unceremoniously turned its back on a centuries-old bond with the Kremlin, analysts say.

By Sunday, when it was clear that pro-Moscow candidate Viktor Yanukovich was on course to become Ukraine's next leader, Russia's humiliation in the Orange Revolution felt over and everything seemed to fall back into place.

Final, official results were not yet out when the Russian pro-government papers heralded on Monday the start of a new era in relations between Moscow and Kiev.

“The Orange Sunset,” the daily Izvestia gloated on its front page, a sardonic reference to the 2004 Orange Revolution and the January 2005 Ukrainian presidential re-run that brought stridently anti-Russian leaders to power.

“Victoria!” exclaimed the government's official mouthpiece Rossiiskaya Gazeta — a play on words combining “victory” and Yanukovich's first name.

It was a stunning reversal from the dramatic geopolitical blow Russia received from the Orange Revolution popular uprising, a movement that many thought had removed Moscow-favourite Yanukovich as a political player for good.

Russia's abrupt loss of clout in a country the Kremlin long regarded as within its sphere of influence was especially painful as Moscow openly endorsed Yanukovich in 2004.

Then-president Vladimir Putin was universally criticised after he publicly extended Russia's victory congratulations to Yanukovich before the official results were even announced.

Russia has learnt from its mistakes. If champagne corks were popping in the Kremlin, there was no outward sign of jubilation among Russia's leaders.

The presidential administration declined to comment, while a spokesman for Putin, now Russia's prime minister but still viewed as the country's main leader, said the government would comment only after official results were out in Kiev.

“We still don't know who won there,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP.

But whoever wins, observers say, one thing seemed certain relations between Ukraine and Russia can only improve.

Yanukovich ran against Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's current prime minister who, despite her leading role in the Orange Revolution, has also sought to develop closer ties with Putin and Moscow in recent years.

“No doubt we are hoping for an improvement in ties,” Gleb Pavlovsky, a political analyst with close ties to the Kremlin, told AFP.

“After Yushchenko, probably any candidate is better for Russia,” he said, referring to Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko, who was trounced out of the contest in first-round presidential polls last month.

Forty-four per cent of Russians believe ties with Ukraine will get better and 28 per cent think they will even be friendly, according to a poll by VTsIOM pollster released on Monday.

Only nine per cent of respondents expect relations to change for the worse.

Under Yushchenko, ties with Moscow dropped to a post-Soviet low as the fiercely pro-Western leader sought to cast his country as the victim of Soviet-era repressions, supported Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, a Kremlin arch-foe, and pushed for Ukraine to join Nato.

End-of-year haggling between Ukraine and Russia over energy prices has become a recurring problem in recent years and last August Russia swore off doing business with Yushchenko for good.

Many in Russia will see Yushchenko's demise and the end of the 'Orange Revolution' as Russia's ultimate vindication as the Kremlin has long warned the so-called 'colour revolutions' can do more harm than good to the ex-Soviet republics where they have taken place.

For Moscow however, the supreme irony is that it was democratic elections — an institution still doubted by many in Russia's own political landscape — that made Yanukovich's win in Ukraine possible, observers say.

“These elections are themselves a democratic achievement of the Orange Revolution,” said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Centre.—AFP