Viewed from Washington, the conflict in
Ukraine's east seems to have reached a plateau. Despite several cease-fire
agreements, fighting along the frontlines has never ceased completely. Yet the
intensity of the violence has markedly decreased, and the Russian military and
its separatist allies have not launched a major offensive in over six months.
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin seems unwilling to withdraw his forces
from the east, some now hope that the conflict will freeze—that is, that the
bloodshed will come to an end even in the absence of a formal political
settlement—allowing Kiev to move on with reforms, economic recovery, and
European integration. Such an outcome, the German Bundestag member Rolf
Mützenich argued in a February essay for Foreign Affairs, should satisfy the West.
This hope has induced a potentially dangerous
complacency about the crisis. A frozen conflict is actually the least likely
medium-term outcome for Ukraine. Far more likely is that Russia will use force
to achieve a settlement on its terms, involving a reincorporation of rebel-held
Donbas into Ukraine that would endow the country’s Russophile regions with a
disproportionate influence over national politics. Rather than pushing for a
frozen conflict scenario that will likely never materialize, then, the United
States, the European Union, and Ukraine should do all they can to minimize the
economic and human costs of this more probable outcome.
THE RUSSIAN ENDGAME
It is easy to see how a frozen conflict scenario
might appeal to the current government in Kiev.
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