a small personal observation on Yushchenko's language skills

It's been said countless time that there is a deep division in Ukraine between Russian-speakers and Ukrainian-speakers and that Yushchenko allegedly represents the latter.
While it's true that Yushchenko does speak mainly in Ukrainian and Yanukovych in Russian, it's evident to me that Yushchenko's first language, as he grew up in a village not far from the Russian border, was Russian.
I listened to him yesterday when he was giving a speech at the Maidan and while his Ukrainian was good: unforced and pleasantly sounded, he made a couple of very common mistakes that reveal a Russian speaker. And he doesn't have a Western Ukrainian accent.
He spoke to the people that brought him to power so it was natural that he came ther to thank them and talked to them. But yet, Yushchenko as people's president is so different from the Russian model with tsarist leanings when state leader only ocassionaly relays messages to his subordinates, the electorate that doesn't really elect anyone. How different....