Putin hints at war in Ukraine but may be seeking diplomatic edge

MOSCOW: Ukraine says it thinks Vladimir Putin is planning a new invasion, and it’s not hard to see why: the Russian leader has built up troops on its border and resumed the hostile rhetoric that preceded his annexation of Crimea two years ago.

But despite appearances, some experts say Putin is more likely seeking advantage through diplomacy than on the battlefield, at least this time around.

“It’s about sanctions,” Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a Moscow-based foreign policy think tank close to the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Reuters.

“It looks like a way of increasing pressure on Western participants of the Minsk peace process,” he said of a peace deal set up for eastern Ukraine, where proRussian separatists have battled against government forces.

For two years, Russia has been under US and EU sanctions over its annexation of Crimea and support for the separatists in eastern Ukraine.

European leaders say the sanctions cannot be lifted unless the Minsk peace deal is implemented, but for now it looks moribund, with fighting occasionally flaring and both sides blaming each other for failing to implement truce terms.

This week, tension escalated dramatically after Putin threatened to take unspecified counter-measures against Ukraine to retaliate for what his spies say was a plot to bomb targets across contested Crimea.

Putin said two Russian servicemen were killed in a clash with Ukrainian saboteurs sent to Crimea.

Kiev says the incident never happened, and was concocted to create a phoney pretext for a new invasion.

The United States and European Union also say there is no evidence it took place. — AFP