Und nunmehr sind wir also im abzusehenden vierten Akt der ukrainischen Tragödie angekommen, dem Griff Russlands nach der Ostukraine und der Reaktion des Westens darauf.
Annexing eastern Ukraine – and thus splitting the country in two – by force has much less support, even among Russian-speakers, than the operation in Crimea. The aim of Russia’s covert military intervention there is to destabilize Ukraine in the long term by using stage-managed “unrest” to delegitimize the May 25 presidential election in the short term, thereby preventing consolidation of the post-Yanukovych political order.