Ukraine's prime minister once said he and the emergency government which took power after pro-European protests in February were on a "suicide" mission, fated to take unpopular decisions that would cut short their political careers.
If that is so, it would seem Arseny Yatseniuk now has a permanent death wish.
Far from dodging the 'kamikaze' hot seat, the 40-year-old technocrat has used his party's surprise first place in last month's elections to outmaneuver rivals and get an assurance he will stay on as prime minister once horse-trading is completed.
And he seems to be relishing a growing reputation as a hawk in the bruising stand-off with Russia and separatists as he continues in a post he has occupied since the heady days of the "Euromaidan" winter revolution that ousted a pro-Russian leader.
On fighting form again on Wednesday, he announced a halt to payment of state funding to rebel-controlled areas in the east. "The money doesn't reach the people. It's stolen by Russian gangsters and essentially supports Russian terrorism," he said.
The strong showing of his People's Front in the Oct. 26 election means he and President Petro Poroshenko's party will easily muster a majority in parliament to steer policies they say should help settle the separatist conflict and align the war-wracked economy with European standards.
But there are many who warn already that the "odd couple" might self-destruct.
Yatseniuk's aggressive language, particularly when talking of Russia, has led people to see him as representing the 'party of war'.
That could prove a burden for the more diplomatic Poroshenko as he tries - against all the odds - to pursue a peace plan for the east. He is the one who has to shake hands with Russia's Vladimir Putin at international gatherings.
Then there is Ukraine's post-Soviet history - a tale of infighting, back-biting and intrigue that does not immediately suggest much prospect of joined-up government in the face of crisis.
The first pro-Western street revolution of 2004-5, known as the Orange Revolution, put Viktor Yushchenko into the presidency. But his time in office was doomed by a vicious rivalry with his prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, which wiped out the gains of the revolution and allowed a return to the pro-Russian 'status quo' five years later.
Continued feuding led to the pro-Moscow Viktor Yanukovich, who took over from Yushchenko in 2010, imprisoning Tymoshenko. She was freed only when Yanukovich fled to Russia last February in the face of the "Euromaidan" protests, named after the central square in Kiev which was their epicenter.
But the stakes today are higher with Ukraine facing the threat of possible break-up after Russia's annexation of Crimea in March and the emergence of self-proclaimed 'people's republics' in the east, backed by Russian force.
Events, including a conflict that has killed more than 4,000 people, have transformed the rules of the political game. The way Yatseniuk's partnership pans out with Poroshenko, a 49-year-old billionaire who made a fortune in chocolates and other sweets after the Soviet Union collapsed, will be decisive.
BALDING, BESPECTACLED
A balding, bespectacled former economy minister, Yatseniuk exudes the air of an intellectual every bit as austere as the painful economic policies he preaches.
It is not an image that fits naturally into Ukraine's rowdy political world known for fist-fights in parliament and deputies being thrown into trash dumpster because of their loyalties.
His face fits well though, in sensitive negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, over disbursement of credit under a $17 billion stand-by program, and with Kiev's other international creditors.
And his commitment to deep-seated reform of an economy ridden with corruption and mismanagement has made him a favorite of the United States and the West.
Ukraine's political elite are raised in a hard school and Yatseniuk's slightly geeky demeanor masks ambition, cunning and a toughness which Poroshenko is only too aware of, analysts say. There are those, too, who see overweening ambition.
Last July he theatrically tendered his resignation when parliament refused to allow his government greater control over energy prices and to increase payments to the army. Within hours, Poroshenko had persuaded him to stay on and parliament, in its next sitting, passed the laws.
He ran, too, a clever election campaign for his People's Front to give it more than 22 percent of the vote on party lists, fractionally ahead of the For Petro Poroshenko bloc.
Projecting an image of Mr. Clean, he announced fresh plans to cleanse the system of corrosive corruption, rooting out closet Yanukovich loyalists and sacking state officials through a process of 'lustration'.
Yatseniuk's campaign allowed his party to bite deep into the voter base of his nationalist-minded rivals to end up fractionally ahead of Poroshenko's bloc on the party's share of parliament seats - a surprise and no mean achievement in a country where money decides much at election time.
The overall result was enough for Yatseniuk to declare immediately that this meant he should stay on as prime minister. Within 48 hours, Poroshenko had agreed - even though he had wanted to appoint his own protege, first deputy prime minister Volodymyr Groysman.
DOOMED TO WORK TOGETHER
But Yatseniuk is pragmatic and realistic.
In an interview with Reuters last April, he said there would come a time when Ukraine would recover control of Crimea from Russia, but when asked what support Kiev could expect from the West to do so, he replied: "Is the world ready for World War Three? I am absolutely sure it is not ready."
Taras Berezovets of the Berta political research center said Yatseniuk was reaping the rewards of looking ahead.
"He once described his government as a kamikaze, but he has survived. Why? Because he is a marathon runner, one of the few who knows how to play a long game. He has supported the economy in crisis and has been able to get through with minimal losses," he said.
Yatseniuk and Poroshenko have much in common. Both are fluent English speakers and practiced in selling the story of Ukraine hard at international gatherings.
Both are urbane and western in manner, a far cry from Yanukovich and several other of Ukraine's post-Soviet leaders who, cut from Soviet cloth, were ill at ease in a Western environment.
Both men are wedded to the concept of integrating Ukraine - in spite of its territorial problems - into mainstream Europe through membership, one day, of the European Union.
Differences between the two men remain however at the level of style and personality, background and social status - something which Yatseniuk has used to his benefit.
Where Poroshenko belongs to the super-wealthy bracket, Yatseniuk, married with two children, plays up a modest, bourgeois lifestyle.
During his election campaign, one news outlet carried a photograph of him taking his seat in economy class on board a flight to the United States where he was heading to defend Ukraine's interests.
No comparisons were overtly drawn. But other Ukrainian media zeroed in at the time on Poroshenko's sumptuous residence outside Kiev that befits the oligarch he is.
Yatseniuk is not given, certainly, to gushing praise for Poroshenko. When, for instance, Yatseniuk speaks of the ceasefire that Poroshenko agreed to on Sept. 5 after big battlefield losses he never praises it but describes it as simply the least bad of two very poor options.
Yatseniuk does not have to back up his tougher stance with any strategic military decisions, since these fall to Poroshenko as overall head of Ukrainian armed forces.
Most commentators though say the two men are doomed to work together given the gravity of Ukraine's situation. Poroshenko already seems to have recognized this by instructing his political bloc to make sure Yatseniuk stays in office.
"There is a definite problem with the overarching ambitions of Arseny Petrovich (Yatseniuk) and the extraordinary euphoria of his party. But all the same Poroshenko and Yatseniuk are not Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. There will be no repeat of 2005," said Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta political research center.
"The war footing we are on today will force them to work together. There's a drought in the jungle and they will have to agree on a truce at the watering hole," Berezovets said.
Olesya Yakhno, a political analyst speaking on TV's Channel 112, said both men also knew that open conflict in government could endanger Western funding and goodwill.
Nor would the Ukrainian public stand for the same old political games, she said.
"If reforms are not carried out nobody will care much about whose fault it was - the President's or the Prime Minister's. There is a realization now by those in power today that they can lose power very quickly," she said.
Copyright Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.
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