SEVEN years ago Yulia Tymoshenko, a populist politician dressed in orange, climbed onto a stage in a snow-covered Kiev and galvanised 150,000 protesters against the rigged victory of Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 presidential election. She sustained the energy of the crowd for days and ushered Viktor Yushchenko to victory, pledging retribution for those who stood in his way. "Glory to Ukraine", she hailed; the crowd shouted "Yulia".
Close to the orange revolution's seventh anniversary, she made headlines again. This time the former prime minister, wearing grey, sat in court to hear a nervous judge reading out a sentence of seven years' jail, a three-year ban on public office and a fine of $190m as purported compensation for damage allegedly caused when she struck a gas deal with Russia in 2009. The term was symbolic: a year in jail for every one that has passed since the orange revolution.

Ever since Ms Tymoshenko was detained in jail on August 5th, the outcome has been predictable. It would have been out of character for Mr Yanukovych, now Ukraine's thuggishly vindictive president, to let his bitter rival, who has often humiliated and poked him with his own criminal past, to go free. It would be against Ms Tymoshenko's nature not to turn her show trial into political theatre. Even before the judge had finished reading the sentence, she turned to the cameras: "This is an authoritarian regime...I will not stop my struggle". As she was led out of court she called on her supporters to overthrow the regime, again chanting "glory to Ukraine".
Outside, a few thousand supporters were pushed around by riot police, but this was a poor echo of the crowd seven years ago. Most Ukrainians see the trial as political, but they are too disillusioned to trust opposition leaders. In the past few months Ms Tymoshenko's modest popularity rating has barely budged even as Mr Yanukovych's has slid downwards.
The significance of the verdict goes far beyond Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Yanukovych. It will determine the country's future direction. By locking up Ms Tymoshenko, Mr Yanukovych has crossed a line separating the chaotic and corrupt but pluralist country that Ukraine was from the Putin-style kleptocracy it is becoming. Since being elected president in February 2010, Mr Yanukovych has moved in two directions, consolidating his personal power but also pursuing economic integration with the European Union. His democratic failings were offset in the eyes of some Western leaders by a contrast with the infuriatingly ineffective Mr Yushchenko. After 18 months of Mr Yanukovych, Ukraine looks more like Russia; but it is closer to a trade and association agreement with the EU.
Ms Tymoshenko's imprisonment now jeopardises years of clumsy but steady progress towards Europe. Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign-policy chief, made an uncharacteristically firm statement that Ms Tymoshenko's case would have "profound implications for EU-Ukraine bilateral relations, including for the conclusion of the association agreement." Mr Yanukovych may have hoped that Ukraine was too important and the risk of pushing it into a Russian embrace too great for Europe to react strongly. What he failed to understand is that it is not sympathy for Ms Tymoshenko that triggered such a response, but his abuse of a core European value, the rule of law. As Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister, put it "of course, few saints grace Ukrainian politics...but whether saint or sinner, everyone deserves a fair hearing, not a show trial."
Unusually, Russia was also cross about the verdict, if for different reasons. Convicting Ms Tymoshenko for a gas deal done with Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister and future president, has an "anti-Russian undertone", said the foreign ministry. Mr Putin was warier: "Tymoshenko for us, and for me personally, is neither a friend nor a relative. In fact, she is more of a political opponent because [of her] pro-Western orientation." But questioning gas agreements, Mr Putin said, was "dangerous and counter-productive". What really irks the Kremlin is that Mr Yanukovych is trying to get lower gas prices from Russia even as he knocks at the EU's door.
Mr Putin sees Ukraine as a crucial part of his plan to reintegrate former Soviet republics into a new Eurasian union that would rival the EU. This idea, formulated in a recent newspaper article, may be a leitmotif of his next presidency. "We are not talking about recreating the Soviet Union. It would be naive to try to restore it...we propose a powerful supranational union capable of becoming a pole of the modern world," he wrote. Without Ukraine, the largest and most important former republic, any such union would be worthless.

At a meeting on September 24th, Mr Putin tried to persuade Mr Yanukovych that Ukraine would get cheaper gas and much more if it joined Russia's customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Europe, he argued, would never accept Ukraine against Russia's will, whereas a union with Russia would bring clear economic gains. Yet it is not just economic benefits that Mr Yanukovych wants from the EU. What he and much of the Ukrainian elite crave is political recognition, visa-free travel and access to Western bank accounts and property. A union with Russia would compromise not only Ukraine's sovereignty but also the elite's control over their own assets. And Mr Yanukovych believes that taking Ukraine closer to Europe would earn him a place in history and redeem his past.

If he is to get there, he must let Ms Tymoshenko out. He can still do this. Mr Yanukovych told journalists this week that "today the court took its decision in the bounds of the current criminal code. This is not the final decision...there is the court of appeal ahead, and what decision it will take and under which legislation has great importance." In Ukraine nothing is ever fixed. Mr Yanukovych has just submitted a draft of a new criminal code to the Rada (parliament) that would soften punishment for economic crimes without making reference to the articles used to convict Ms Tymoshenko. The opposition will propose amendments specifically to decriminalise Ms Tymoshenko's article (abuse of office without personal gain), which dates to Soviet days. If these amendments are supported by Mr Yanukovych's party, the new criminal code would be retrospective-and Ms Tymoshenko would be freed.
Timing is of the essence. On October 20th Mr Yanukovych is due to visit Brussels. His trip could be cancelled without a positive development in the Tymoshenko case. Letting her go would be the wisest course, even if wisdom in Ukraine is often in short supply.