War or Peace?: Putin Alone Will Decide (Le Monde, France)
"The
Ukrainian affair … will move toward a shaky equilibrium with the merit of stopping
the cycle of violence, or in one of those patterns Europe knows only too well, into
a wider confrontation - a war at the heart of the continent between Russia and
the West with Ukrainians in the middle. … Really, though, everything depends on
one man: Vladimir Putin. Does the Russian president believe he has done enough
to make Kiev pay for its crime of misalliance with the E.U.? Does he want to begin
the healing process? Does he want to continue to maintain the war? Rightly, Berlin
and Paris have offered a compromise. The response lies in the Kremlin and nowhere
else."
This is one of those moments when history teeters between a conflict
that is localized, even if murderous, and a wider and more worrying
confrontation. The Ukrainian affair can go in either direction. It will move
toward a shaky and unsatisfactory equilibrium with the merit of stopping the
cycle of violence, or in one of those patterns Europe knows only too well, into
a wider confrontation - a war at the heart of the continent between Russia and
the West with Ukrainians in the middle.
The stakes explain the renewed diplomatic activity of the
moment. After visiting the Ukrainian capital Kiev at the same time as U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday (Feb. 5), Francois Hollande and
German Chancellor Angela Merkel were in Moscow on Friday.
So what do we have? It is a more-or-less concerted effort to
achieve a lasting cease-fire and the beginning of a negotiated solution. The
Franco-German initiative is welcome. In response to ten days of "exchanges"
with Moscow and Kiev, Germans and French have drafted a joint proposal for a settlement
which they are now submitting to the Russians and Ukrainians. The approach is
positive. As Mr. Holland said at his press conference on Thursday, Europeans must
try everything possible to prevent Ukraine from plunging "into total war."
The initiative is driven by events on the ground and what is
being increasingly murmured in Washington. Pro-Russian separatists in east
Ukraine, transformed by the Kremlin into a true army with armored personnel
carriers, T-80 tanks and heavy artillery, have recently widened the territories
they seized last year. On the other side, in a country facing the most serious
economic difficulties, the Ukrainian army is not handling the impact well, is under-equipped
and under-trained.
This renewed aggression which was decided in Moscow and
driven on the ground by Russian military leaders has brought the United States
to consider supplying weapons to Kiev. Barack Obama is hesitant but Ashton
Carter, his new defense secretary, is in favor. Mr. Hollande and Madam Merkel,
always opposed to Ukraine's entry into NATO, fear the turn this will take the
Ukrainian affair: in the heart of Europe, an indirect confrontation between
Americans and Russians.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
Very little information has filtered out about the Franco-German
proposal. It would redraw the ceasefire; reaffirm the territorial integrity of
Ukraine as part of eventual federalism; and it would encourage Kiev to make
gestures favorable to populations in the east. And it could reassure Russians
on the implementation of any trade agreement between Ukraine and the European
Union.
Really, though, everything depends on one man: Vladimir
Putin. Does the Russian president believe he has done enough to make Kiev pay for
its crime of misalliance with the E.U.? Does he want to begin the healing
process? Does he want to continue to maintain the war? Rightly, Berlin and
Paris have offered a compromise. The response lies in the Kremlin and nowhere
else.
