The article contains comparative analysis of political changes that have been taking place in recent years in Russia and in Ukraine. Among the factors that have predetermined divergence of the two countries’ political trajectories, particular attention is given to the differences in the modes of overcoming disfunctions of the respective institutional systems by making resort to resources of personalist regimes. Differences at the level of the trends of political dynamics have also been noted: in the one case strengthening (institutionalization of its kind) of the personalism of the presidential power is stated, in the other – its being constantly washed out. Prospects of the political reform in Ukraine and probable development of the political process in Russia in the course of the 2007 to 2008 electoral cycle have been analyzed, too, in the contexts of the changes in global politics, of the dynamics of the intra-elite processes and of the splits and contradictions of mass consciousness in both countries.