Russia has again taken the initiative in Ukraine's conflict, this time unveiling ceasefire proposals that put huge pressure on Kiev and present Nato and the EU with difficult and potentially divisive questions.
After a bloody fortnight in which pro-Moscow separatists, apparently backed by Russia's military, hammered Ukraine's forces in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, Kiev expected its western allies to launch a counter-offensive on two fronts this week.
Ukraine’s leaders hoped for staunch verbal backing and possibly pledges of bilateral military aid at a Nato summit starting today, and for EU states to hit Russia with much tougher economic sanctions by Saturday.
This show of support for Ukraine was to begin with US president Barack Obama's visit yesterday to Estonia, where he vowed that Nato would defend all its members and would not be cowed by Russian aggression against its neighbours.
In characteristic style, Russian president Vladimir Putin welcomed Obama to Europe by shaking up the situation around Ukraine, forcing Washington, Nato and the EU to analyse his moves and intentions quickly and react accordingly.
With his ceasefire plan Putin casts himself as peacemaker, and by suggesting it could be approved by Kiev and the rebels tomorrow he hopes to defuse the threat of tough EU action against Russia in the coming days. Several EU states oppose tougher sanctions, and now they can claim that Russia is striving to de-escalate the conflict.
Another of Moscow’s key aims was revealed in the confusion surrounding the announcement of the peace initiative.
The office of Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko initially said he and Putin had agreed on a "permanent ceasefire" in Luhansk and Donetsk – only for the Kremlin to insist that such a deal was impossible because Russia was not party to the conflict.
‘Establishment of peace’
In an apparent response to the Kremlin’s comments, Poroshenko’s administration changed its statement and said an “understanding was reached on steps to allow the establishment of peace”.
Moscow wants to distance itself sufficiently from the rebels to establish plausible deniability over its role in eastern Ukraine, and so reduce the risk of punishment from the EU and US should the conflict drag on or deteriorate further.
This is the strategy Russia has used for more than 20 years in other separatist enclaves of the former Soviet Union: South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, and Transdniestria in Moldova.
They are now mired in “frozen conflicts”, which Moscow – while supporting the rebel regimes financially, militarily and diplomatically – has used to stymie efforts by Georgia and Moldova to integrate with the West.
Sanctions imposed so far by Washington and Brussels did not stop Russia helping Ukraine’s rebels rout government troops this month, forcing Poroshenko to return to the negotiating table from a position of weakness.
But he knows that any peace deal giving the insurgents, and their Moscow masters, effective control over eastern Ukraine would be rejected by most of his compatriots.
They would see it as a betrayal of Ukraine’s revolution, its bid to shake off Russian control and be a truly sovereign, western-looking state, and they would severely punish his allies at snap elections set for October.
Toughest fighting
Such an agreement would also enrage the volunteer battalions who are doing much of the toughest fighting against the rebels, and who are already deeply suspicious of the billionaire president and his government.
If these heavily armed units suspect that victims of the revolution and the war are being sold out by an oligarch president, they could seek ways other than the ballot box to vent their fury.