Ukraine's president-elect will likely have little trouble wooing Western leaders, including President Barack Obama, when he travels to Poland and France this week many have already hailed the rise of the pragmatic, Western-leaning leader.
For Petro Poroshenko, who takes office on Saturday, the real task will be grappling with a pro-Russia uprising sweeping Ukraine's east, and a political system dominated by grudging political allies and holdovers from the previous corrupt administration.
That will mean proving to Ukrainians that his government is not a throwback to the corruption and political infighting that have long plagued Ukraine.
"For so long, corruption has been a cost-free, risk-free exercise in Ukraine," said Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine who is now an analyst at the Brookings Institution.
"While countries can tear themselves up by getting too bogged down in the past and in prosecutions, Poroshenko will have to deal with a lot of public suspicion, because so many of these players have been around for the last 10 years."
After the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's previous pro-Russia president, following monthslong protests, he and his closest allies fled the country. But many remnants of the Yanukovych regime stayed behind.
Yanukovych's chief of staff remains in Kiev, along with some of his top security officials during the crisis - when more than 100 people were killed by gunfire in downtown Kiev.
The Party of Regions, which backed Yanukovych, has more seats than any other party in parliament and every incentive to stall parliamentary elections until it can regroup from the revolution.
Despite much talk of prosecutions against corrupt Yanukovych-era officials, no charges have been filed against any of those who stayed in Ukraine.
