Carnegie Moscow Center
As Petro Poroshenko embarks on a long steep journey as leader of Ukraine, he would do well to study Eduard Shevardnadze's statecraft in Georgia, with both his great successes and the later disappointments.
While Kiev is desperate to achieve a full military victory almost at any cost, Moscow is reaching out with humanitarian aid, confusing and confounding its opponents. As to the war there, it still continues.
Kyiv and Moscow are on a collision course. They may already be past the point of no return where a negotiated solution might have kept the crisis from escalating.
The world can be an awfully dangerous and unpredictable place.
While European mainstream media’s focus has been on the developments in Gaza and in northern Iraq, they have been giving only scant attention recently to the humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine.
Prudence dictates that Russia should not invade Ukraine. However, if Putin decides differently, the Ukraine crisis will immediately become a Russia crisis, and then a European one.
Ukraine’s political heat wave will last well into the coming fall and winter—unless Ukraine, the West, and Russia change their current course.
Even now, six months into the Ukrainian crisis, Western leaders don’t know how far Vladimir Putin will go in Ukraine. The United States should immediately re-establish real channels of communication with Putin and his inner circle.
The United States seems intent to force Russia into capitulation over Ukraine, a situation caused by a poor understanding of economics on the part of Putin’s advisers. While low intensity battle will likely linger on, Russia remains in a more maneuverable position to offer a deal to the United States.
Going to war in 1914 was suicidal for the Russian state. Today, a Russian military invasion of Ukraine might well lead to a catastrophe with dire consequences for Russia itself, or to an all-out conflict between Russia and NATO.