TWO choices have been made in Ukraine in the past tumultuous month: by the country’s people and by its president. Despite the many stains on his reputation—locking up opponents, rampant cronyism, not to mention his occasional, infelicitous use of prison slang—Viktor Yanukovych retained, until recently, the vestige of respectability that the presidency of a nation of 46m confers. He has opted to forfeit it. His people’s choice is equally clear—and equally irrevocable.

Mr Yanukovych had already sent his skullcrackers in once to Independence Square in Kiev, centre of the protests that erupted in November after he rejected an association agreement with the European Union, in favour of an opaque economic deal with Russia. That needless brutality brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets. This week his minions launched raids on opposition parties and, on the night of December 10th, on the reoccupied square—despite the facts that the protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful and a majority of Ukrainians share the crowds’ aim of integration with the EU; also despite Mr Yanukovych’s own suggestion that he would negotiate, albeit at the tip of a truncheon (see article).

That the crackdown happened when senior Western diplomats, visiting to broker a compromise, were still in Kiev, was a spiteful snub. John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, expressed his “disgust”. That is now the proper Western attitude to Mr Yanukovych, whatever noises he makes about reopening talks with the EU: his vows of re-engagement may as well be written on the waters of the Dnieper, along with his government’s pledge to respect peaceful protest.

Henceforth, while they are obliged to (perhaps not that long), Western leaders should deal with him as little as possible, and hold their noses when they do. He should rank among those obnoxious autocrats whose power is based on coercion and state capture rather than genuine legitimacy: leaders such as Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus—or, indeed, Vladimir Putin, whom Mr Yanukovych visited in Russia shortly before he sent in his goons.

And Lenin, too

Mr Putin loathes both popular protests and the idea that Ukraine might move closer to the West. For the time being, Mr Yanukovych has bowed to his prejudices. But, sooner or later, the protesters will have their way. That is partly because, lacking the Kremlin’s petro-wealth, Mr Yanukovych is less able to bribe and bludgeon his countrymen into submission: because of his mismanagement, Ukraine’s economy is on the verge of collapse. But mostly it is because a majority of its citizens want to live in a law-abiding, cleanly governed country.

Any society with politics that feature the toppling of a statue of Lenin, Orthodox priests blessing riot police at the barricades, and a rapturous public reception for EU officials, is plainly a complex place. But for all its idiosyncrasies, Ukraine’s trajectory is clear: towards Europe. An entire generation has grown up since it became independent, and knows there is a better way to be governed than Mr Putin’s kleptocratic authoritarianism, which Mr Yanukovych has tried to import.

Mr Yanukovych’s choice of force was a moral defeat, which makes his distance from mainstream Ukrainians clearer. And a literal defeat: as The Economist went to press, the protesters still held most of the square, and his authority was fraying. The thousands of brave souls on the icy streets of Kiev are proof that his critics’ choice of a European future is far more robust. Even as it repudiates Mr Yanukovych, the EU must make it clear that, under a better government, Ukrainians’ hope of joining the European family can eventually be realised.