Can we talk intelligently about Russia and Ukraine?

[JackRiddler]

29. And now the plot turns.

Yatsenyuk's coalition has broken up with the withdrawal of junior partners including Svoboda, and he has resigned. Whether the present parliament can yield a new coalition is an open question. Now this is an opportunity for immediate negotiations and a cease-fire, and it depends largely on Poroshenko, now truly the one man who can take charge. But from his rhetoric (as given by the German report in Rheinische Post, or Rheinische Pest as wags prefer to call it), it seems likelier there will first be a massive intensification of the attempted military solution. What are the odds that U.S. will decide this brink is far enough and rein him in, or that Germany-EU will take a more active role in deescalation? (This is where the demonization of Putin brings things closer to inevitability, since you can't negotiate with Hitler, right?) Fact is, there has been little pacification on the ground, only massacres, and it's very unlikely there will be peace in the east in time for a credible vote there.

The big story otherwise is that before breaking up the coalition passed a law to institute a draft from among all men aged 18-50. This could bring the people back into the equation. If Kiev follows the path of escalation and goes ahead with the draft, there may come sufficient resistance in the western Ukraine for a new squares movement, this time against Poroshenko.