"The world disorder that so many pundits talked about for years has finally arrived in Europe."

The Disturbing Legacy of the Ukraine Crisis

by Dmitri Trenin


The new Minsk agreement is mainly a product of Europe’s fear of war and Ukraine’s rapidly deteriorating military, economic and political condition. The Germans and the French were jolted into action by the prospect of the United States arming Kiev, provoking Moscow to rise to a new level of confrontation. Ukraine’s leadership had to choose between the Scylla of making a bad peace and the Charybdis of continuing a losing war. As for the Russians, freezing the conflict along the lines of engagement and making the “people’s republics” safe from enemy fire was the best option available.

Whatever happens next—there is still uncertainty over the prospective cease-fire—is unlikely to produce a settlement to the Donbass conflict, much less for the larger issue of security in Europe. At best, it is likely to be a truce, hopefully a lasting one, but offering little prospect of (re)integration in Ukraine or reconciliation on the continent as a whole. Indeed, the truce will legitimize new divisions—along the cease-fire lines in Donbass and the NATO-Russia quasi–front line in Europe. There will be no new Iron Curtain, to be sure, but communication between Russians and Westerners has already become difficult, with members of the policy communities essentially talking past each other, as the public exchanges during the recent Munich Security Conference have demonstrated.

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