John O’Sullivan is impressed at how the new Ukrainian government has pulled itself together amid Putin’s provocations:
[I]t has maintained a lively democratic unity; passed a series of reforms leading to a more liberal constitution, fresh elections and a new government; discussed these proposals with great transparency (its parliamentary proceedings are televised); won over the main oligarchs, who prefer even a Kiev regime hostile to corruption to a Putin-esque world in which the government is a rival oligarch; and responded firmly but not rashly to Russia’s invasion of Crimea and other provocations.
It has, accordingly, been accepted as legitimate throughout most of Ukraine even before the elections. Attacks on its supporters, attempts to seize official buildings, demonstrations by crowds calling for Russian intervention there have been seen in some eastern cities, but on a smaller scale than most experts predicted. Most Russophone Ukrainians seem to support Kiev — which suggests that a distinctly Ukrainian nationalism has spread eastwards in the past 20 years. And when they switched sides, the oligarchs ensured that much political and public opinion switched sides, too.
All of which means that there is simply not enough disorder and anarchy in Ukraine to provide [Putin] a pretext for any further incursion.
“Calm,” Massie adds, “even of a relative and tense kind, is Russia’s enemy”:
Perhaps Moscow will gain the Crimea but only, at least for now, at the expense of its own long-term ambitions in its near abroad. Indeed Moscow’s aggression may prove counter-productive, effectively ensuring Russia cannot achieve its own goals. Heckuva job, Vladimir.
If the east were to rise, best it rose quickly. But it has not risen and time is not on Russia’s side. Each day that passes without a fresh confrontation is time Moscow loses – time, too, that it can scarcely afford to lose. Time is Moscow’s enemy and Kiev’s friend. Even in the spring. If Russia was to bring Ukraine back into the fold it needed to do so quickly by winning a swift victory in decisive, indisputable, fashion.
Anna Nemtsova reports that the invasion is swelling the ranks of Ukraine’s nationalist militias:
[T]his week marked another transformation for the Maidan: Never before have they been as anti-Putin as they are now. From Monday night to Tuesday morning, after Russia’s threat, hundreds of volunteer recruits arrived on the Maidan and at other militia headquarters throughout Kiev, determined to join the impending fight against Russian forces. These well-organized and well-trained armies are independent from the new leadership. The nationalist armies, including Right Sector and White Hammer, are seen as the heroes of the Maidan — but they are critical of the new leadership. They told me they hate Yulia Tymoshenko and her allies who are now running the new government. But Putin’s threat of invasion brought these groups closer together again. On the Maidan, demonstrators chanted “Putin het! Putin het!” (or “Putin Out!” in Ukrainian) in the capital’s streets and squares. Signs reading “Putin, calm down!” and caricatures casting the Russian president as Adolf Hitler appeared all over the square: tacked onto piles of tires, on soot-covered barricades, on the nylon tents that have housed protesters for months.
The Dish 