MOSCOW (AP) – Ukraine’s last cease-fire collapsed quickly. This one may last – because it’s in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interests.
Putin’s goal of keeping Ukraine in Russia’s orbit remains the same. But recent battlefield gains by pro-Russia rebels mean that Moscow has the upper hand in peace talks that will help determine Ukraine’s future.
From the onset of the Ukrainian crisis, Putin’s objective has been to secure enough autonomy for Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east that the region can keep its close ties to Russia – and to prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO.
In March, after Ukraine ousted its pro-Russian president, Moscow annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. But while many in Ukraine and the West fear Putin wants to seize more land, that doesn’t seem to be his preferred option. If he wanted to grab more land in Ukraine, he could have easily done so.
Putin apparently has calculated that the price would be too high, both because of the devastating economic punishment the West would impose and because of the need to spend tens of billions of dollars to support eastern Ukraine. With the Russian economy in recession, that’s a liability the Kremlin can’t afford.