There might still be a way to solve the Ukraine crisis without escalating military action and the debilitating economic consequences of increased and lengthy sanctions, and that would be to give up the east of the country, just as the Crimea, and quickly join the rest to Europe, according to some analysts.

European leaders are meeting this weekend and the NATO military alliance holds a summit in Wales next week, with President Barack Obama already in Europe making strong comments against Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The presence of Russian troops in the Donbass region shows that Moscow is involved in what up to now was an internal battle, but NATO and the West are unlikely to retaliate with ground troops.

Economic sanctions imposed by the West could be increased but as with the Russian sanctions on food stuff, these sanctions take months to really start to hurt and in any case are as costly for the export sector, employment and economy of Europe as they are for Russian consumers and the domestic political climate there.

Several analysts said the best outcome may be a “frozen” conflict, far removed from a return of a cold war, in which Donbass and the Crimea are run by Russian proxies but the rest of the Ukraine gets stronger ties with and support from the West. A standoff to cool down.

Political map of Ukraine, highlighting Donbass Region (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Without Disguise

Ulrich Speck is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Europe think-tank and has published extensively on the conflict and German foreign policy.

“Russia’s advance in Ukraine could theoretically be stopped by the West through military force, but that has been ruled out from the beginning of the conflict. Ukraine’s border is a weak border, badly protected and not guaranteed by a strong power. Neither the US nor EU countries are ready to defend it,” he said.

“On behalf of the West, Germany has tried for more than half a year to convince Putin to step back from the brink of open war in Ukraine, but Berlin failed to achieve this goal. Neither western sanctions which already severely damage Russia’s economy nor German-led diplomatic efforts managed to convince Moscow that its military operations in Ukraine do not serve its interests,” Speck added

“Russia defines its interests much differently than western democracies do. Putin apparently sees control over Ukraine a major foreign policy goal, even more important than good relations with the EU and the US,” he observed.

“It is clear now that Russia is the driving force behind the so-called insurgents, and that it is ready to even fight without any disguise in order to gain and hold territory in South and Eastern Ukraine. All the West can do immediately, and will do, is to step up sanctions. But these are unlikely to make a difference in the short term. The most likely outcome as things stand now is that Russia is going to create another so-called frozen conflict, putting proxies into charge of the regions it has militarily conquered,” Speck said.

“This will make it much more difficult to stabilize Ukraine’s statehood which is already fragile. But pushed into a conflict that the West wanted to avoid at nearly all costs, the US and especially the EU will have to invest seriously in making the rest of Ukraine a success story”, he concluded.

Warm Embrace

This analysis is largely shared by David Marples, a professor at the university of Alberta in Canada and currently a visiting professor at the Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. He runs the UkraineAnalysis blog.