Ukraine crisis could pull U.S. to war

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Graham Allison: Geneva deal on de-escalation in Ukraine a ray of hope
• He says unless terms are implemented and conflict reversed, civil war still a threat
• He says West does have an interest in stalling Russia-coaxed incursions
• Allison: If Latvia, part of NATO, were next, U.S. could be compelled to enter conflict

Editor's note: Graham Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and director of Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He served as assistant secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration and as an adviser to the secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- Despite the ray of good news in Thursday's Geneva agreement on steps to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine, President Obama was right to sound a note of caution, observing that "I don't think we can be sure of anything at this point."

The deal, reached by Russia, Ukraine and the West, called for, among other things, disarming illegally armed pro-Russian demonstrators in eastern Ukraine, and the surrender of the government buildings they have seized.

These are good and essential first steps, but unless they can now be implemented as a basis on which the parties can move to further, bolder steps to reverse underlying trends, Ukraine could still slide into civil war. If this happened, how would it affect American national interests? Could Ukraine become a 21st century echo of the Balkans in the 1990s, when the collapse of Yugoslavia saw a decade of war between Serbs, Croatians, Bosnians and Kosovars? (No one should forget that just a century ago Ukraine was sucked into a tragic, bloody civil war shortly after gaining independence in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.)

Graham Allison

There is a saying that history never repeats itself, but it does sometimes rhyme. Fortunately, full-blown civil war in Ukraine still seems unlikely — mainly because one side, the Ukrainian government, appears both unable and unwilling to fight. Nonetheless, it's not hard to sketch a scenario in which war is the outcome -- and from that to envision a further scenario in which the U.S. finds itself drawn into a direct confrontation. (More on that in a moment.)

As we have seen in the past two weeks in eastern Ukraine, Russian speakers— acting either spontaneously, or at the behest of Russian security services, or both — have taken control of government buildings in 10 cities in Ukraine's eastern provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv. Ukrainian military, security and police forces are so impotent, demoralized and compromised by Russian infiltration that their response has so far been pathetic.

This week, the New York Times reported on the Ukrainian government's "glaring humiliation," when a military operation to confront pro-Russian militants instead saw Ukraine's 21 armored vehicles separating into two columns, surrendering or retreating. In several instances, when confronted by pro-Russian crowds, soldiers and policemen have even switched sides.

If Thursday's deal unravels and Ukrainian authorities remain unable to restore basic law and order, the pro-Russian demonstrators occupying buildings will be emboldened to expand their reach. Further steps may include the demonstrators setting up an independent "republic" in the three Eastern regions and seeking to drive out forces loyal to Ukraine's interim government, provoking the Kiev government to respond with greater force, and then calling in Russian troops to defend them against what they will claim to be "fascists" from western Ukraine.

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Responding to a crackdown, Russian security forces would likely provide arms and other assistance to the Russian speakers, claiming that such a call for assistance from "compatriots" is impossible to ignore. As conflict intensifies, western Ukrainians, perhaps even Poles or other Europeans, could come to the aid of Ukraine. In this spiral, one thing could lead to the next, ending in significant bloodshed in eastern Ukraine, and perhaps even spreading beyond.

Widespread violence or civil war would certainly be a calamity for Ukrainians. But would its consequences for American national interests require an American military response? Fortunately for Americans, the answer is no. In 2008, when Russia crushed Georgia in a short war that ended in Russia's recognition of independence for the former Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, that was President George W Bush's answer.

As the ongoing civil war in Syria has claimed more than 150,000 lives, neither President Obama nor his most ardent critics, like Arizona Sen. John McCain, have judged this such an extreme threat to U.S. interests that Americans must kill and to die to stop it.

That the U.S. does not have vital national interests in Ukraine will not mean that the U.S. has no national interest in holding Moscow accountable for violating territorial integrity assurances that Russia and the U.S. gave to Ukraine in 1994 in persuading it to give up nuclear weapons. Indeed, if left to take its course, this crisis has the potential to fuel further developments that engage core American national interests.

For example, if Crimea becomes Putin's precedent for creeping annexation in which Russia-instigated Russian speakers occupy government buildings, liberate a territory and establish a relationship with Russia, where will this stop? Could the 25% of the population in Latvia who are Russian speakers be tempted (or coaxed) to follow suit? (Both Latvians and Russians vividly recall that in 1940 Stalin annexed Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, nations that regained their independence only in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.)

Russian military intervention in Latvia, even under the guise of special forces in green garb without insignia, would almost certainly be engaged by Latvian military and police. If Russian security forces came to the assistance of their brethren in Latvia, as they would be likely to do, this would mean a direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO.

Many Americans are not aware that Latvia and its Baltic neighbors are members of the NATO alliance, of which the United States is the leader. How many Americans know that members of that alliance, including the United States, commit themselves in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty to regard an attack against one NATO signatory as "an attack against them all"? Pursuant to that commitment, successive American presidents have approved war plans in which Americans would fight to defend the territory of all members of the alliance.

Preventing Ukraine's collapse into civil war must therefore be a high priority for the leaders of both the United States and Russia. The Geneva agreement on "initial concrete steps to de-escalate tensions and restore security," which U.S. and Russian diplomats signed, along with their EU and Ukrainian counterparts, represents the first real step in the international community's collective effort to reverse Ukraine's slide into chaos.

Leaders in both Washington and Moscow will have to follow up with further, bolder steps to prevent Ukraine's spiraling into a civil war that could draw them into a direct confrontation. These additional steps will require all parties to accept arrangements that would be unacceptable — except for the fact that all feasible alternatives are even worse.

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Vow to push forward on Ukraine pact meets defiance on the ground - CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: A company of U.S. soldiers will conduct exercises in Poland and Estonia, an official says
• The major players "agreed to move ahead rapidly" with implementation of pact
• Kremlin spokesman says Russia should not be "treated like a schoolgirl"
• Protest leader in Donetsk, Ukraine, says Russia did not speak for his group with pact

Donetsk, Ukraine (CNN) -- Two days after an international pact was brokered with the stated goal of easing tensions in Ukraine, the major players met again in Kiev to hash out plans to push it along, but ended their meeting offering little indication of progress.

"It was agreed to move ahead rapidly with the practical implementation of the Geneva Statement," the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said in a statement released Saturday that referred to the pact, which was agreed to on Thursday in the Swiss city by officials from Ukraine, the United States, the European Union and Russia.

"In this regard the meeting's participants recognized the need to take immediate concrete steps towards de-escalation. The Ukrainian side informed the meeting on first steps already taken in this direction. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission informed the meeting of its plans to send the deputy chief monitor to eastern Ukraine today to work on the practical modalities of the implementation, as well as on the ongoing work of the monitoring teams on the ground."

The participants also agreed "to meet regularly."

The announcement came as pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk dug in Saturday in defiance of the international deal, which is aimed at resolving a crisis that has threatened to devolve into civil war.

The separatists have rejected calls for them to leave public buildings they occupy across eastern Ukraine and to lay down their arms.

Their departure and disarmament are key elements to the pact, which promises amnesty in exchange.

But separatists in eastern Ukraine have neither signed on to the deal nor indicated they intend to comply with it -- unless the pro-Western government in Kiev steps down.

It is the people aligned with the Kiev-based national government who should vacate public buildings, not the militants in Donetsk, said the separatists' self-declared leader, Denis Pushilin.

He said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who signed the deal, was not acting on his behalf. "He signed on behalf of the Russian Federation," said Pushilin, the head of a group called the Donetsk People's Republic.

Pushilin has called for a referendum by May 11 to ask residents whether they want sovereignty from Ukraine. Such a move could prove popular among those who view Ukraine's interim authorities -- who took power in February after the ouster of pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych -- as illegitimate.

Meanwhile, the eastern region remains locked in a stalemate.

For the Geneva agreement to succeed, Russia would likely need to persuade protesters to comply, some observers have said.

However, Russia denies it has any direct influence over the armed groups.

The government in Kiev may draw some small encouragement from the fact that pro-Russian protesters have not seized any new buildings or infrastructure sites since the agreement was signed.

Kremlin: Don't treat Russia like a schoolgirl

Meanwhile, the war of words among Ukraine, Russia and the West has continued.

In an interview posted on the website of Russia's state-owned Rossiya 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he won't back down to Western demands under the threat of sanctions.

But Putin said Saturday that he saw no reason why relations between East and West shouldn't return to normal, according to state news agency ITAR-Tass.

"This does not depend on us. Or not on us only. This depends on our counterparts," he is quoted as saying. "I believe there is nothing preventing from improvement of relations and from normal cooperation."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday called on Lavrov to again urge Russia's full and immediate compliance with the Geneva statement, a senior State Department official said.

During the call, Kerry said all sides should move quickly to implement the pact's provisions, which include the disarmament of illegal armed groups and the return of illegally seized buildings to their legitimate owners, the official said.

The diplomatic back-and-forth came amid word from a Western official that a company of U.S. soldiers will conduct military exercises in Poland and Estonia. The official, with direct knowledge of the plan, said the exercises will take place in coming weeks. A U.S. military company typically consists of about 175 troops.

U.S. allies Poland and Estonia border Russia, and both countries have expressed concern over recent Russian military movements and its actions in and around Ukraine.

Yatsenyuk, Turchynov call for unity

Ukraine President Olexander Turchynov on Friday criticized the "factions of communists (who have) refused to sign or even vote on the document."

He and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk urged them to do so, saying in a joint statement, "We have to do everything possible not to take this treasure of (Ukrainian unity) from our children."

"We are calling on our compatriots to (reach out) to each other and give up actions aimed at hatred, and come back to (work toward) rebuilding a united Ukraine," the two leaders said.

Yatsenyuk and Turchynov also spoke of plans to change the constitution, to provide "more powers" and "necessary financial resources" to the regions and to allow for the use of Russian and other languages in addition to Ukrainian.

"We are all different, but we all have one thing in common: We are all citizens of a sovereign and independent Ukraine," the leaders said.

Acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia told reporters Friday in Kiev that Russia must prove that its intentions in Ukraine are sincere.

"Minister Lavrov did promise that they want to de-escalate, so we will see in a few days if it was (a) sincere promise," he said.

Deshchytsia said that the Ukraine government's "anti-terrorist operation" against pro-Russian protesters who have taken control of key sites will continue, but that its intensity will "depend on the practical implementation" of the pact. So far, the show of force has done little to restore control of the eastern region to Kiev.

Monitoring mission

All sides agreed on Thursday to ask for monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has a mission in Ukraine, to help implement measures aimed at easing the crisis.

Deshchytsia noted OSCE had "over 100 monitors" in the country.

The European organization released a statement Friday describing the situation in the Lukansk and Donetsk districts as "tense due to the activity of armed opponents of the central government and Ukrainian special forces conducting a 'counterterrorist operation.'"

The OSCE noted, for example, that the state security service building in Luhansk was occupied.

At a military base in Mariupol, observers saw blood and evidence of gunfire and Molotov cocktails. Local government officials reported three dead and a hospital official said five people had been treated for gunshot wounds, according to OSCE.

Even as he announced the pact, Kerry warned Thursday that Russia could face "further costs" if the situation did not ease in line with the steps set out in the statement. Ukraine's leaders too must play their part in calming the situation, he said.

Caution, skepticism greet deal

"I don't think we can be sure of anything at this point," U.S. President Barack Obama told reporters Thursday.

The United States and its allies "have to be prepared -- potentially -- to respond" to continued efforts by Russia to interfere in southern and eastern Ukraine, said Obama, who has already agreed to provide nonlethal aid to Ukraine's military and state border guard service.

But, he added, military options were not on the table, "because this is not a situation that would be amenable to a clear military solution."

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Putin: Intervention still an option

The talks in Geneva were called amid a crisis that has seen East-West relations at their most strained since the end of the Cold War.

This week, Putin said in his annual televised call-in session with the Russian people that military intervention in Ukraine remains an option.

Moscow denies it has any intention of invading but says it reserves the right to protect Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine. Putin warned Tuesday that Ukraine was "on the brink of civil war."

NATO has said that Russia has about 40,000 troops assembled near Ukraine's eastern border.

Peskov, in his interview with Rossiya 1, said Russian troops were moved near the Ukraine border "due to the instability of the political situation" -- the first time Russia has said the deployment was for anything other than military exercises.

"It is a country where they just had a coup," he said, referring to Yanukovych's ouster, "and any country would take measures to provide security. And also we should remember that Russia is an absolutely free country and has a right to move their military."

Russian forces supported local defense forces in Ukraine's Crimea region, Putin said Thursday in his first public acknowledgment that Russian troops had been deployed on the Black Sea peninsula.

Peskov said Putin made this decision after citizens in the majority Russian-speaking peninsula voted last month to align with Russia.

"Crimea was an act of protection of Russian people and their right to have a referendum," he said.

On Saturday, Putin told Russian state television that he planned to bestow awards on those who supported the Crimean self-defense forces. "Government awards will certainly follow," he said.

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CNN's Phil Black reported from Donetsk, Laura Smith-Spark wrote and reported from London, and Tom Watkins wrote and reported from Atlanta. CNN's Greg Botelho, Frederik Pleitgen, Kellie Morgan and journalist Azad Safarov, all in Kiev, contributed to this report, as did Tim Lister and Arwa Damon in Donetsk. CNN's Elise Labott, Anna Maja Rappard and Tatyana Drotenko also contributed.

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Western nations line up at UN to slam Russia's moves on Ukraine - Reuters

(Reuters) - Western nations on Sunday accused Russia of massing tens of thousands of well-equipped troops near the Ukrainian border in preparation for a Crimea-style invasion, while Russia denounced what it said was Ukraine's Russophobic, anti-Semitic leadership.

"Satellite images show that there are between 35,000 and 40,000 Russian troops in the vicinity of the border with Ukraine, equipped with combat aircraft, tanks, artillery and logistical support units," Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said.

"This is in addition to the 25,000 Russia troops based illegally in Crimea," Lyall Grant added in his speech during an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Ukraine.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud echoed Lyall Grant's remarks.

The meeting of the 15-nation council, the first emergency session on the Ukrainian crisis in weeks, was convened at Russia's request. Council diplomats said Moscow wanted it to be a closed meeting by France and other Western insisted that it be a public session.

The council has held numerous emergency meetings on Ukraine but has been incapable of taking concrete action because of Russia's sharp disagreements with the United States and Europe.

Last month Russia vetoed a Western draft resolution that would have condemned Crimea's referendum on secession from Ukraine, held when it was already occupied by Russian military forces.

As expected, the council took no action on Sunday.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin dismissed the criticisms of Russia's actions in Ukraine, telling the council, "Many inaccurate accusations were made against Russia."

He blamed the Kiev government for the unrest across southeastern Ukraine and described its threatened military operation in the region as a "criminal use of force." He was referring to Ukraine's ultimatum to pro-Russian separatists to disarm by Monday or face armed force.

"Things might take an irreversible turn for the worst," Churkin said about the ultimatum, without elaborating.

"The authorities (in Ukraine) do not want to listen to those who do not accept the imposed dominance in Kiev of national radicals and chauvinists, Russophobic, anti-Semitic forces," he said. "The grotesque Russophobia and embedded hatred has become the norm in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) as well."

CHOREOGRAPHED IN RUSSIA?

Kiev has repeatedly said the rebellions across Ukraine are inspired and directed by the Kremlin. But action to dislodge the armed militants risks tipping the stand-off into a new, dangerous phase as Moscow has warned it will protect the region's Russian-speakers if they come under attack.

One Ukrainian state security officer was killed and five were wounded on the government side in Sunday's operation in Slaviansk, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power suggested that Russia was dissembling about its true intentions in eastern Ukraine, where many Russian-speakers live.

"You have heard these last weeks Russia disclaim any intention of occupying or invading," she said. "You have heard it publicly, and we have heard it privately."

"Unfortunately, the fact is that the armed seizure of buildings in six eastern Ukrainian towns yesterday and several more today mirrors the tactics Russian forces used in the early stages of the Crimea invasion," Power said, adding that the instability "was written and choreographed in, and by, Russia".

Ukraine's envoy, Yuriy Sergeyev, echoed the remarks of Power and other Western envoys, noting that the troops massing near Ukraine were "obviously the professional special forces". He also said, "We don't want any clashes."

Lithuanian Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaite spoke of Russia's "unending provocations" and attempts to dismember Ukraine.

"Where there was no unrest, unrest and chaos are being created by pro-Russian militias, again anonymous without insignia, again carrying the same modern models of assault weapons as seen in Crimea," Murmokaite said.

"Again the external anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western propaganda machine is in full swing, inciting suspicion, mistrust and hatred waiting to explode," she added.

No country on the council spoke out strongly in Russia's defense. Moscow's traditional ally and fellow veto power on the Security Council, China, merely called for all parties in Ukraine to "keep calm and exercise restraint."

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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Will Russia Invade Ukraine?

Until about three weeks ago, Viktor Nikolaenko ran the politics division in the Donetsk city government. When I went to see him in February, just days after deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych fled the country, the city in eastern Ukraine was calm. There was a small scrum of guys in track suits and pensioners waving Soviet flags guarding the statue of Lenin, and some special ops officers with shields guarding city hall, but that was all. At the time, Nikolaenko, a member of Yanukovych's party, was not happy with what had happened in Kiev. He called it a revolution that had undone the results of a democratic election and the day before there had been rumors that Ukrainian nationalist thugs were headed toward Donetsk with bats. But the threat didn't materialize and life went on. "Donetsk is going about its daily life," he told me. "In all 45 districts, the mayors are still in place. The region was and is stable." 

But then the pro-Russian rioting started, with young men trying to take over city hall. One of them even scaled the walls and planted a Russian flag on the roof. (He turned out to be Russian, a notorious Kremlin activist.) It was nothing compared to what was happening in Crimea, but it was worrying. Nikolaenko, who'd worked in this field for years, tried to talk to the locals among the separatists. He knew them, after all. But Kiev sent in oligarch Serhiy Taruta to rule the town—much as it was pressing other oligarchs into service across the country—and Taruta brought in his own staff, people Nikolaenko felt didn't know how to deal with the ebb and flow of separatist protests. "They treat the symptoms not the disease," he told me by phone the other day. Between the local government and the secessionists,  "There was no mutual desire to talk. But the question is who is responsible to open talks. Personally, I think it’s the government. It's responsible for not escalating the conflict. People are just speaking their minds, so you need to convince them."

Taruta's people didn't agree and the new government in Kiev seemed to be ignoring the southeast so Nikolaenko turned in his resignation on March 21. Things were dying down around then anyway.

Then, this weekend, violence flared again, in Donetsk, in Luhansk, in Kharkiv, all cities in the allegedly Russian-speaking east of Ukraine. Protesters took over government buildings and declared their cities to be republics whose independence they demanded. Aside from the Soviet grannies, the protesters looked just like the "extremists" that had toppled the government in Kiev: black leather jackets, masks, bats. ("It's the same as the Maidan, but backwards," says Fyodr Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs. "It's strange to think that if an instrument is used one way that it won’t be used in the other way.")

Nikolaenko believes this was not an accident. "The protests were peaceful before. I don’t believe that in one day across the entire east and south of Ukraine, the same protest breaks out," he says. "Since the revolution, the situation in Donbass did not change for the worse. In fact, it got better." The government in Kiev said it would, for example, reexamine the controversial repeal of a language law that would have made Russian an official language in places where it was widely spoken—repealing the law had been one major . "Then all of a sudden, an armed resistance rises. I’ve been in politics too long to believe in such a coincidence. The synchronization is obvious."

Indeed, the protesters in Kharkiv were so local that they mistook the opera theater for city hall. 

"Russian involvement is there," says Lukyanov. "It's moral, political, and maybe even financial. It would be strange if it weren’t there." Why? What is Russia angling for here? "Russia needs this to not get an anti-Russian Ukraine under its belly," Lukyanov explains. "Because if it’s going to be consolidated, it’s going to be consolidated as an anti-Russian Ukraine," in part because Russia took Crimea, in part because, he says, this has been the animating philosophy of the successful post-Soviet states. Russia, in other words, needs not just to destabilize the new government in Kiev, but to make sure the country never joins the E.U. or NATO, and that it remains weak and pliable, if not an outright vassal state. 

There are many ways to get to this point. One way is to blackmail, by massing your forces at the border. Another is by having them invade. Another is by making sure the pro-Russian protests never die down, and even turn violent, making it difficult to hold presidential elections smoothly (and legitimately) on May 26. Yet another is by pursuing a diplomatic route, pushing the U.S., rather than Ukraine itself, to change Ukraine's constitution and make Kiev turn political power over to the country's regions—something that, ironically, Russia has long eschewed at home.

"It’s clear that it’s a rather obvious form of blackmail," says Masha Lipman, a political analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center. "Russia completely obviously provoked this horror, then a couple of days pass and Lavrov calls Kerry and tells him what kind of constitution Ukraine needs." 

Lukyanov says the upcoming talks—on which Russia is imposing some very specific and odd conditions, like that the Orthodox Church be left alone and that Ukrainian presidential candidates participate in the talks—are just another prong of the blackmail strategy. "Either we discuss new conditions of existence: Ukraine continues to exist but doesn’t join NATO, then okay, we’ll leave it alone," he says of the Kremlin's mentality. "If you say don’t get involved, it’s a sovereign state, well, okay, we’ll show you just how sovereign in it is and that it can’t control its own territory." And Russia has shown over the last month that it doesn't need to fire a shot to show the world that Ukraine is a failed state. 

"It’s all openly cynical," Lukyanov says, "but what can you do? That’s just how it is." 

Invasion, which is on everyone's mind right now, is but one tactic and it is clearly one Putin, a man who likes to keep all options open for as long as possible, hasn't taken off the table just yet. And some observers say there may still be more innovation down the line. "The Russian government has barely dipped into its array of instruments that might destabilize the government in Ukraine and aggravate the region," says Andrew Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment and a Russia specialist in the Clinton administration. "We’re just at the beginning of this drama, and it's going to show just how much of a spoiler Russia can be."

The problem with invasion is not that it can't easily be done, but that the costs for Putin would be huge. Crimea was isolated and largely Russian, and people in Russia as well as in Crimea viewed the island's allocation to post-Soviet Ukraine as a historical mistake. Ukraine is more complex. If you invade it, what do you do with it? And how do you decide when to stop? Where does eastern Ukraine end and central Ukraine begin? And how would Russians in Russia feel seeing their boys come home in coffins, killed not by Muslim Chechens but by fellow Christian Slavs, fighting a country to whom one-third of Russians have some familial connection? 

But what if Ukraine makes good on its ultimatum, issued today, giving protesters 48 hours to clear out of government buildings? If they crack down and there are deaths among the Russian speakers Putin claims he is protecting, says Lukyanov, "I can't imagine how Russia won't get involved."

As I've pointed out, such rationale doesn't always work when predicting Putin's actions. It works until Putin upends it, and then Western and Russian analysts alike are left scrambling to marshal a logical framework for whatever action Putin has decided to take. "Putin really doesn't like it when people know what he is going to do," Lipman points out. He likes acting on his own terms, and he especially likes surprising people. Invading Georgia, returning for a third term, freeing Mikhail Khodorkovsky, not cracking down on the protests, then quashing them: take your pick. "Everything is possible," Lipman says. "That's what Putin is all about."

This knowledge of Putin's unpredictability has the Moscow chattering class tied up in self-annhilating knots. Every night, they go to bed, expecting to wake up to news of tanks in the streets of Donetsk, and yet every morning the news doesn't happen. "There are more and more articles about how he won’t invade because of this feeling that it still hasn’t happened yet," Lipman says. But then does that mean he will invade? Will he then invade as soon we start writing long analyses about how he won't invade? 

Political observers both in Russia and the West are once again reduced not to analyzing data or strategy, but to reading the tea leaves and psychoanalyzing a man whose psyche bends toward unpredictability. And this, says Lipman, is Putin's victory over the West. It's not just that Crimea showed that Putin can do whatever he pleases without the U.S. or Europe being able to do anything about it; it's that all they can do is react. "Before, it was Russia reacting to Western policies: NATO expansion, intervention in Syria," Lipman explains. "Now everyone else has to wait and watch to see what Putin is going to do."

Putin's promise to Russians, the core, in his mind, of his mission is to restore the geopolitical greatness Russia lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, 23 years later, Russia is once again calling the shots. Putin delivered.

One strange by-product of Russia's tactics is the Kremlin's deftness in completely reappropriating certain terms, of inverting and perverting them. Just look at the images of the protests in Luhansk and Kharkiv, and you'd be forgiven for thinking you were looking at images of Kiev's EuroMaidan. Yet the former were whipped up be Russia, whereas the latter was a largely grassroots movement. As a result, because the hand of Moscow is so obvious in east Ukraine's protests, the independence of the protesters in Kiev comes under suspicion: were they too organized externally, perhaps in the West? More simply, it gives the two movements equal moral weight, which Russian journalist Oleg Kashin called a "mocking parody of the Maidan."

Or take, for example, the argument for federalizing Ukraine. Ukraine, like Russia, is at least on paper a highly centralized state. There are no gubernatorial elections. Regions like Donetsk send most of their tax revenue to Kiev and wait to get a small portion of it back. This breeds discontent in these regions. There is a feeling in Donetsk, for example, that it feeds the Western part of the country that so looks down on them. (This isn't quite true because the coal industry here is heavily subsidized by Kiev.)

The idea of federalization—devolving power to local governments—is a controversial one in Ukraine, but it was widely, hotly debated when the revolution forced Yanukovych from power. And it's not a bad idea for a country with a palpable regional split. "There's too much centralization," Kirill Cherkashin, a political scientist in Donetsk told me back in February, pointing out that 80 percent of Donetsk taxes are sent to Kiev. "So you have a situation in which either the west [of Ukraine] rules and the east is unhappy, or the reverse. You have to hand over power to the regions."

Then, suddenly, you have Sergei Lavrov pushing the idea of federalizing Ukraine to John Kerry, demanding that the Ukrainian constitution is rewritten as a federalist one before any elections, and, suddenly, federalization is a hugely suspect scheme—both to the West, and, more importantly, to Ukrainians. It's hard to imagine that Lavrov or Putin really care about local government or the unique needs of Ukrainian regions—just look at the tight grip Russia has on its own regions—so what is it really about? Taking power away from the government in Kiev, and making one half of Ukraine (and all its industry) highly susceptible to Moscow's influence. Perhaps it's even a way to set these regions on a path to secession, and eventually integration into Russia. 

It's Soviet tactics at their best, as when Lavrov, in an op-ed in the Guardian, accused the West of whipping up regional tensions in Ukraine and bringing the country to the brink of civil war. Really, though, it's a flourish that goes back to Gogol, of making language and ideas disintegrate before your disbelieving eyes.

As events in Donetsk rush on, Nikolaenko, the former Donetsk political officer, watches from afar and wishes things were being done differently. Though he notes that the pro-Russia protests in Donetsk have topped out at 4,000 people, "there’s a real fear in the south and east, a real distrust of Kiev," he says, and Kiev only seems to be making the situation worse. The same people who are cracking down on Donetsk separatists are the ones trying to negotiate with them. Since Yanukovych fled, on February 22, no one from the new government in Kiev came to visit Donetsk or Luhansk or Kharkiv, or any of the places where we're now seeing protests. The only people who came, Nikolaenko notes, are people from the security apparatus. "It's a real question," he says. "Why didn't they find time for eastern Ukraine?" 

In recent days, Yulia Tymoshenko as well as other officials of the provisional government began a feverish tour of the east, but it's not enough. "It needs to be intensive, detail-oriented work, day in and day out," he says. Now that he's in Kiev consulting several clients running for the city parliament, though, he can see why the provisional government isn't doing more to listen and bring in the east. "There's so much work to be done here," he says. "You have to deal with the security organs, with the elections, with figuring out what to do with all the weapons in the streets. There are still miles to go."

He still says regional tensions are greatly overstated. He drives around town with Donetsk plates and no one seems to care. The city is nice, the work is good. "The Maidan is still there, but it doesn't affect the daily life of Kievans much," Nikolaenko says. "They've vowed to stay there until the elections." That's his horizon, too, and his country's. "The situation won’t calm down until May 25," he told me. "If the presidential elections happen legitimately, if all regions have precincts, if lists of voters are okay, if the Central Election Commission can ensure a calm election process that is then ratified by the international community, everything will be fine. If not, it's hard to tell what will happen." 

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Ukraine Clamps Down in Kharkiv as Kerry Says Russia Sows Unrest - Businessweek

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia of using “special forces and agents” to spark unrest, as Ukrainian authorities sent security forces to Kharkiv to clear the country’s second-biggest city of separatists.

“Russian provocateurs and agents operating in eastern Ukraine” have been “sent there determined to create chaos,” Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington yesterday. “These efforts are as ham-handed as they are transparent,” Kerry said. He accused Russia of working to “create a contrived crisis with paid operatives across an international boundary.”

An “anti-terrorist operation” was under way in Kharkiv, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border, with the subway closed and the center sealed off, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said yesterday. The Russian government said its neighbor’s crackdown on separatists in the east risks sparking civil war.

Russia and the U.S. are on a collision course after tensions flared anew in Ukraine. With Russian forces deployed on the border, the U.S. and its allies say they’re concerned that President Vladimir Putin may be planning further incursions into eastern Ukraine after annexing the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea. Russia cut its forecast for 2014 economic growth yesterday, as did the International Monetary Fund.

Hryvnia Weakens

The unrest has prompted investors to sell Russian and Ukrainian assets. Ukraine’s 2023 Eurobonds fell to the lowest level in two weeks yesterday, with the yield rising 19 basis points to 9.46 percent. The hryvnia weakened 1.1 percent to a record 11.825 per dollar.

The Finance Ministry in Moscow canceled today’s ruble-bond auction after yields jumped the most in three weeks yesterday. The benchmark Micex share index rose 0.2 percent yesterday, though it’s slid 6.4 percent since Putin’s intervention in Crimea on March 1. Gold climbed to the highest price in almost two weeks while crude oil also rose.

“We’ve already deported a number of Russians who’ve been in eastern Ukraine provoking the situation and violating Ukrainian laws,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “The Ukrainian government has enough power and authority to control the situation.”

Referendum Demand

Pro-Russian protesters demanded a referendum on seceding from Ukraine, state-run Rossiya 24 television reported. The regional government building in Kharkiv was cleared of separatists yesterday, with 70 people detained, according to Avakov. None of them are Russian citizens, he said.

There were conflicting reports of events in Luhansk, 330 kilometers southeast of Kharkiv. Ukraine’s security service said on its website that pro-Russian protesters who seized one of its buildings took 60 hostages, planted mines and made threats with explosives and weapons. The region’s governor, Mikhail Bolotskih, said by phone that there were no hostages.

Ukraine’s national guard and irregular forces of Pravyi Sektor, which unites nationalist groups, were gathering in southern and eastern Ukraine, the Foreign Ministry said.

“We call for the immediate halt of all military preparations, which risk sparking a civil war” in Ukraine, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Slower Growth

Amid the tension, Russia cut its growth forecast for 2014 to 0.5 percent to 1.1 percent, Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Klepach told reporters in Moscow yesterday, citing reduced export demand for natural gas and increased capital outflows. That compares with a 2.5 percent target set in December.

The IMF said Russia’s gross domestic product will expand 1.3 percent, down from a 2 percent prediction made in January. Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard said in a Bloomberg Television interview the fund may lower its forecast further, perhaps to less than 1 percent.

Russian companies should consider delisting their shares from foreign stock exchanges and switching trading to Moscow amid the standoff, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told reporters after a government meeting near Moscow. “This is a question of economic security,” he said.

Kerry said yesterday that additional sanctions targeting Russia’s energy, banking and mining industry are “all on the table” if Russia intervenes further in Ukraine.

‘Really Hurt’

“The president is completely poised to move forward with the sector or other sanctions,” the secretary of state said in his Senate testimony. “If we bring sector sanctions, then Russia is going to really hurt.”

The latest demonstrations have resembled the actions of pro-Russian protesters who seized Crimea’s assembly and paved the way for Russia to annex the peninsula last month. Putin says he has the right to defend Russian speakers in Ukraine from “fascists” after the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Any further Russian move into Ukraine “would be an historic mistake” and “a serious escalation,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Paris. “It’s obvious that the evolving security situation in Ukraine makes it necessary to review our defense plans.”

Russia has as many as 40,000 soldiers stationed along the frontier, according to the U.S. and NATO. Putin says they are conducting military exercises and will withdraw afterward.

‘Needling Ukraine’

An outright invasion of eastern Ukraine is unlikely in the run-up to the May presidential election, said Chris Weafer, a partner at Moscow-based Macro Advisory.

“Recent events look like a Cold War-type set-up filled with agents provocateurs,” Weafer said by phone from London. “It seems like Russia’s just needling Ukraine to see what they can get away with.”

Kerry said yesterday that he’s spoken with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to arrange talks among officials from Ukraine, the U.S., the EU and Russia to head off any escalation. He told the Senate committee that a meeting will take place next week and that Russia’s willingness to take part represents progress.

Russia is ready to examine a “multilateral format” for talks, Lavrov said in Moscow. The new Ukrainian government hasn’t yet sent “any positive signals” to the southeast, he told reporters.

“We urge the new government, which is working in difficult circumstances, to reach out and to be as inclusive as possible,” European Union President Herman Van Rompuy said at the Austrian parliament in Vienna yesterday.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kateryna Choursina in Kiev at kchoursina@bloomberg.net; Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net; Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net Eddie Buckle, Larry Liebert

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Ukraine crisis: Ukraine in bid to retake buildings - BBC News

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg: "The war of words between east and west continues"

The Ukraine authorities say they have seized back control of the regional administration building in the eastern city of Kharkiv from pro-Russia separatists.

They say they hope buildings in Luhansk and Donetsk will be freed shortly as well.

On Monday, pro-Russia demonstrators seized government buildings in the three cities.

Russia recently annexed the peninsula of Crimea following a referendum.

Kiev and the West say the referendum in the territory, where the majority of people are Russian speakers, was illegal.

Moscow has thousands of troops massed along its border with eastern Ukraine.

Although it insists it has no intention of invading Ukraine, it says it reserves the right to defend ethnic Russians in the country.

Ukraine Deputy Foreign Minister Danylo Lubkivsky has told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the situation in eastern Ukraine was "under control but remains dangerous".

Interior ministry troops block a group of pro-Russia protesters in Kharkiv

Pro-Russia protesters gather at a barricade outside the offices of the SBU state security service in Luhansk

In Kiev, scuffles break out in parliament after Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko blames the new government and "nationalists" for the crisis

Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov says several Ukrainian policemen have been injured in the operation to free the Kharkiv regional state administration.

Some 70 people were held without shots being fired, Ukraine's interior ministry said in a statement.

Mr Turchynov said those who seized the buildings would be treated as "terrorists and criminals" who would be prosecuted with the full force of the law.

Rebels occupying Donetsk's regional government building on Monday declared a "people's republic" and called for a referendum on secession from Ukraine to be held by 11 May.

There have been talks overnight in Donetsk between the authorities and pro-Russian activists who had occupied the regional administration building.

On Tuesday, Russia warned Ukraine to stop any military preparations, with the Russian foreign ministry saying in a statement that such preparations risked causing a civil war.

Russia is refusing to recognise the new authorities in Kiev who took power after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February.

'Whipping up tension'

On Monday, a White House spokesman warned Russia against "either overtly or covertly moving into eastern Ukraine".

He said there was "strong evidence" that some of the pro-Russia demonstrators there were being paid and were not local - and called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to "cease efforts" to destabilise the situation.

Moscow denies orchestrating instability and separatist sentiment in Ukraine's industrial heartland.

In an article on the website of the UK's Guardian newspaper, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned what he described as the "groundless whipping up of tension" - he said the West was to blame for what was happening , because it had tried to force Ukraine to make a choice between east or west.

He also warned authorities in Kiev against any use of force against pro-Russian demonstrators.

On Tuesday, the Russian foreign ministry alleged that Ukraine was deploying "US mercenaries" from a private security firm dressed as Ukrainian special forces - but there has been no confirmation of that, says the BBC's Steven Rosenberg in Donetsk.

This is part of the continuing war of words between Russia and the West, our correspondent says.

But amid the war or words, there is still some talk of diplomacy, our correspondent adds: senior diplomats from the United States, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union are expected to meet within the next 10 days in an effort to defuse the tension.

The US and the EU have already imposed targeted sanctions on Russian and Ukrainian individuals over the annexation of Crimea.

BBC Moscow correspondent Daniel Sandford says that although events in Donetsk appear similar to those in Crimea, there are major differences.

Donetsk has many Ukrainian speakers as well as a Russian-speaking majority, and opinion polls there have shown considerable support for a united Ukraine, he says.

Eastern Ukraine was the political heartland of Mr Yanukovych and has a large Russian-speaking population.

Mr Yanukovych fled Kiev for Russia after months of street protests triggered by his refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU in favour of closer ties with Russia. More than 100 people died in the ensuing unrest.

Are you in Donetsk, Luhansk or Kharkiv? What is your reaction to this news? If you are willing to be interviewed by the BBC please email bbchaveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with the subject title 'Ukraine'

Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.

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