Radicals threat to stability

Extremists on both sides in Ukraine make the chances of peaceful settlement unlikely, writes

nationalists will press Kiev to be assertive and not repeat the humiliation in the Crimea.

That episode makes it doubly difficult for Kiev to play softlysoftly. It fears that the Kremlin is nibbling away at its territory, but knows that cracking down clumsily on separatist Russians could provoke Putin’s intervention.

Undisciplined Ukrainian nationalists might act on their own. Tuesday’s brawl in parliament, when nationalist MPs dragged the Communist leader from the podium, and reports that separatists occupying a building in Luhansk may have a bomb, are evidence of the fluid situation. Fisticuffs are one thing, but bloodshed could transform the public mood. That is, after all, what happened in central Kiev six weeks ago.

If both sides in Ukraine were merely puppets of Great Power sponsors, the situation would be much less dangerous.

Naturally, both the West and the Kremlin have their agendas. But neither side has control of radicals on the ground.

The seven weeks until the presidential election offer extremists on both sides plenty of opportunity to make the running. Pro-Russians have no interest in a successful election; Ukrainian nationalists will stoke tension as their best chance to rally voters. Such polarisation makes the chances of the Kremlin or Kiev achieving its aims peacefully virtually nil.

Mark Almond is a lecturer in modern history at Oriel College Oxford, and author of the forthcoming