Ukraine points towards the start of a tumultuous new era in world politics

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At Minsk, he has achieved his minimal goal. Kiev has conceded the failure of its efforts to wipe out the Donbass rebels backed by Moscow. If the ceasefire becomes permanent, the “people’s republics” will be physically safe and can start turning themselves into functioning entities on the models of Transnistria. Russia will need to supply them with more than weapons and humanitarian assistance, straining its resources even more, but there’s hardly an alternative. For Putin, and most Russians, these are “our people”.

Yet, in Minsk, Putin reaffirmed Russia’s official position that Donbass should remain part of Ukraine. This is not a concession. Within a formally unified Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk are a protected centre of resistance to the political leadership in Kiev. The situation in the rest of the country permitting, they can expand their influence beyond Donbass and link up with those who, a year after the triumph of the Maidan, have become disillusioned with their government, which is woefully unable to tame corruption and improve the lives of ordinary Ukrainians. Indeed, if the truce in the east of the country holds, the future of Ukraine will depend on how it manages reform and popular discontent.

Russia has not so much “lost Ukraine”, as, at least for the time being, its European option. The recent joint trip of chancellor Angela Merkel and president François Hollande to Moscow, which paved the road to Minsk, is a rare top-level visit to Russia by western leaders these days. The German-Russian relationship, a mainstay of Europe’s post-cold war stability, has dangerously frayed. With politics adversarial and history divisive, the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War has led to controversies, with a number of politicians in Poland, the Baltic states and Ukraine seeking to minimise the Soviet Union’s contribution to the defeat of Nazism or accusing the Soviets of crimes to exonerate those who sided with Hitler against Stalin.

Thus, as a result of the Ukraine conflict, the gulf between Russia and the European Union is wide, deep and growing. The Russian government does not expect the lifting of EU sanctions for a long time and, even then, it is hard to expect business as before. Putin’s idea of a “greater Europe from Dublin to Vladivostok”, which he was seeking to sell to the European, particularly German business community, only five years ago, is being replaced by the reality of Russia’s increasing closeness to China and the rise of what can be called a “greater Asia from Shanghai to St Petersburg”. When Putin reviews the Victory Day military parade on 9 May, his most honoured guest will be the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, with Barack Obama and most other western leaders boycotting the celebration.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/15/ukraine-is-pointing-in-the-direction-of-a-new-world-order