“Naked heat” protesters marched in Lviv, Ukraine, to draw attention to problems caused by the economic crisis.

By CLIFFORD J.LEVY


KIEV, Ukraine - Ukraine, which has suffered a devastating blow from the economic crisis, has had no finance minister since February. It also has no foreign minister or defense minister. The transportation minister just stepped down. The interior minister has offered to resign as well, after being accused of drunken behavior.

The president and the prime minister are no longer speaking, though they were once allies and heroes of the Orange Revolution, which brought a pro-Western government to power in 2005. The spirit of that uprising has apparently been squandered in a country that seems permanently gripped by political paralysis.

The public appears so frustrated that the leader of the opposition, who has close ties to the Kremlin and is often portrayed as the villain of the Orange Revolution, is the early favorite to win the presidential election next January.

The mood here is reflected in the popularity of a video clip that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in recent days. It shows the prime minister, Yulia V.Tymoshenko, who once enthralled Ukraine with her rousing slogans and peasant-braidas-tiara hairstyle, just before she was to give a televised speech recently.

Her teleprompter suddenly malfunctions, and she snaps, “It’s all gone.”

Ms.Tymoshenko was referring to her text, but her words have been viewed as something of an epitaph for her political movement.

The deadlock has led the major European nations to voice growing alarm that Ukraine is incapable of dealing with its disintegrating economy.

They fear that an economic collapse here could reverberate throughout the former Soviet bloc and beyond.

Recently, the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland made an unusual joint visit to the capital, Kiev.

The German, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, declared that he was “extremely worried” about Ukraine.

The major cabinet posts are unfilled in part because Ms.Tymoshenko and the president, Viktor A.Yushchenko, cannot agree on replacements. Ms.Tymoshenko used Parliament to dismiss the defense and foreign ministers, who are nominated by the president.

Behind the scenes, the president’s associates have contended that Ms.Tymoshenko is untrustworthy and has Machiavellian designs on power. Her side has responded that the president is a bumbling politician who is jealous of her charisma and public support.

Optimists in Kiev said the situation had worsened largely because the political class was jockeying before the presidential election, and they pointed out that the country’s leaders had always found a way to pull back from the brink.

The popularity of President Yushchenko, who achieved worldwide attention during the Orange Revolution when his face was scarred in an attempted poisoning that remains unsolved, has sunk into the low single digits, and he is given little chance of winning re-election.

Mr.Yushchenko has been chided by even his own advisers for a lackluster bearing that has turned off the public, and it was in evidence recently at a nationally televised news conference. He began with a statement that ground on for half an hour and was spoken without notable intensity, even when he attacked Ms.Tymoshenko.

Relations between the two have so deteriorated that Ms.Tymoshenko even tried recently to build a coalition with an Orange Revolution foe, Viktor F.Yanukovich, a former prime minister who leads the opposition in Parliament. That effort imploded in a cacophony of charges and countercharges.

Ukraine’s last finance minister, Viktor M.Pynzenyk, who is widely respected, acknowledged in an interview that the government had become hopelessly dysfunctional.

He said he resigned because it was impossible to conduct the country’s fiscal affairs.

“People are disillusioned not with the Orange Revolution, but with the politicians,” Mr.Pynzenyk said.