Ukraine is deeply wary of threats to its independence, so one might expect widespread alarm at the sight of 100,000 or so Russian troops at the border. Things are not so simple
, Russia’s president, about “military-technical” action. Things are not so simple. Ukrainians have weathered eight years of war against troops backed by Russia in the breakaway “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, which have claimed 13,000 lives. But they have also lived through rhetorical twists and turns, the making and breaking of ceasefires, and countless predictions of horrors that never came. In such a world, scepticism is a form of wisdom.
The dynamic of efforts to avoid a war resembles that of a hostage negotiation. Russia points its guns at Ukraine, but directs the demands it unveiled on December 17th to America. These include a ban on Ukraine ever joining NATO, and on the alliance conducting any more drills on Ukrainian territory. Mr Putin seems poised to send troops to fight and die in Ukraine if talks break down. The West has no such inclination.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is not exactly uniting the country behind him. Polls suggest that few voters fancy him as a wartime leader. That may explain why his tussles with political foes have not ceased. The president predicted an oligarch-led coup against him in early December that failed to materialise. On December 20th his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, was charged with treason over alleged payments for coal sourced from Ukraine’s occupied territories.
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