With thousands of troops amassed on the border and talk of a “humanitarian intervention”, NATO warns that it might be:
“We’re not going to guess what’s on Russia’s mind, but we can see what Russia is doing on the ground – and that is of great concern. Russia has amassed around 20,000 combat-ready troops on Ukraine’s eastern border,” NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said in an emailed statement. NATO was concerned that Moscow could use “the pretext of a humanitarian or peace-keeping mission as an excuse to send troops into Eastern Ukraine“, she said.
Ian Bremmer doubts this is a bluff, although it’s not really what Putin wants:
Sustained intervention is Putin’s current and preferred approach, where he can foment enough instability through the separatists that a unified Ukraine cannot pull away from Russia. The “long game” is more Russian arms provisions and economic pressure until Kiev is forced to accept a deeply Russia-influenced federal system. Direct invasion would come with a much more staggering price tag. First and foremost, the Russian people are opposed. …
But even though Putin still prefers the intervention route, it makes sense for him to brace for invasion. The mere threat has strategic benefits: it’s primarily a deterrent against Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, demonstrating the consequences for a siege of Donetsk and Luhansk. In addition, it makes the West focus on the question of ‘Will Russia invade or not invade?,’ drawing attention away from the blurrier forms of intervention that Putin is already engaging in.
Emile Simpson urges Western governments to give Putin a way out of this mess:
If the West is serious about stopping naked Russian aggression against a sovereign state, but nonetheless recognizes Moscow’s own interests in this conflict, it should put its money where its mouth is by reconfiguring its sanctions to be a deterrent rather than a punishment, and look to the U.N. or OSCE to seek a real international peacekeeping or monitoring force that gives Putin a face-saving way out. Otherwise Western policymakers will be left with two unsavory options, should Russia intervene further in eastern Ukraine: either effectively to accept a fait accompli, as in Crimea, or react with half measures that only further provoke a Russian president who feels he can only fight his way out of the corner he’s been boxed into.
Meanwhile, Anna Nemtsova reports on the growing humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine, where government forces are still battling pro-Russian separatists:
At a United Nations emergency meeting in New York on Tuesday, John Ging of the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned the Security Council that the worsening situation in eastern Ukraine caused “an increase in numbers killed” and put millions of people at risk of becoming victims of violence. On Wednesday, Ukrainian officials urged Russia to stop Grad rocket fire from across the border, while Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out artillery and air strikes. Local medical personnel and volunteers struggling to help the increasing number of victims complained about two key issues: the shortage of medicine and their own security. In the past two months of combat in and around the cities, seriously injured people often have been left lying on the ground for hours waiting for medical help to arrive. Donetsk had very few volunteers; and after gunmen stormed the office of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières MSF), not many foreign professionals are willing to work on the ground.
The Dish 