Ukraine: light in the east

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/17/editorial-ukraine-light-in-the-east

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The news from Geneva is good. Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine have agreed some initial steps to calm the situation in the east of the country, and some broad principles that will govern the ways in which Ukraine will decide on its political future.

Yet it is far too early to conclude that the worst international crisis for many years has been contained, let alone solved. What has been agreed in Geneva, rather, moves the conflict in and over Ukraine into a new chapter in which we may hope military threats will play a lesser part but which will almost certainly be long and messy.

It is never likely to be free of the danger of regression to the dangerous confrontation that was building in recent days, with Nato deploying forces as close to Russian territory as it feasibly could, and the Russians pushing their units up to the Ukrainian frontier.

Nato's deployments, insofar as any have been completed, were token, while Russia's were much more than that. Now the Russians are apparently to stand down one battalion, a tiny fraction of what they have assembled, and they are ready to stand down more as and when the political process in Ukraine meets with their approval.

This means that Russia's military leverage will remain a very important factor in the situation. The agreement on the involvement of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, welcome though it is, could also be the cause of skirmishing or worse in the future, since Russia will provide some of the monitors on which the maintenance of peace and order in the east may depend. It is absolutely reasonable that it should do so, but it is also not hard to see that there could be differences of interpretation that could lead to major problems.

It is also unclear at this stage how the constitutional process in Ukraine is to be managed. Will the work of the then existing constitutional commission stand? Will the presidential election take place as previously envisaged? How will Ukrainians in the eastern part of the country be consulted about the constitution and about, for example, the option of indicating that they wish to be part of Russia?

Nobody has given up on their aims or hopes for Ukraine, and Russia's leverage remains largely intact. But sense has nevertheless prevailed.

Vladimir Putin said yesterday that "I really hope that I do not have to exercise this right" of entering Ukraine to protect Russian speakers, "and that we are able to solve all today's pressing issues via political and diplomatic means". The contest for Ukraine is not over, but we are in a better place than we were.