Is Putin Showing Olive Branch?
Updated: 10:02pm UK, Friday 23 May 2014
By Katie Stallard, in Donetsk
The St Petersburg economic forum was otherwise pretty unremarkable, but Vladimir Putin's speech on Friday could be significant.
He said he would "respect the choice of the Ukrainian people" - his first real indication that Russia will recognise the outcome of Sunday's presidential election, and perhaps the first glimmer of a suggestion that his position on Ukraine might be changing.
Before we all get carried away, he did go on to say that, technically, the ousted president Victor Yanukovych remains in power.
And he repeated, once again, his view that the revolution on the Maidan was a coup d'etat supported by the United States and "European partners".
He also said that Ukraine was now in the midst of "full-scale civil war".
But - choosing to focus on the positives - might this be an olive branch the Russian President bears before him?
Vladimir Putin is not a man who famously backs down. He is not known for softening his position under pressure. He is, though, a consummate pragmatist.
It may be that Mr Putin has now got what he wants, or at least enough of what he wants, to be going on with.
For all of the fury about the "fascist junta in Kiev" and the supposed oppression of Russian-speaking citizens in the east, the Kremlin's real fear here is Nato - the prospect of its old Cold War bogeyman expanding east, through an EU-affiliated Ukraine, right up to the Russian border.
A Ukraine that is destabilised, ideally federalised from Russia's point of view, leaves an eastern region still open to Russian influence and crucially not loyal to Kiev. The buffer state remains.
And for all that Russia massed tanks and troops on the border, the prospect of actually invading, and defending, Eastern Ukraine is deeply unpalatable.
Eastern Ukraine is not Crimea - with its small land border and ease of existing supply lines.
The east is vast, largely flat, and difficult to hold a line across. An occupying army would face years of guerrilla attacks and losses.
So it may be that this is enough, for now, for Mr Putin.
That calculation may be assisted by the need to ward off a further round of sanctions threatened as early as Monday at the slightest sign that Russia is undermining Ukraine's vote.
It is perhaps no coincidence that Mr Putin made his comments at an international economic forum, to an audience of investors and analysts keen to be reassured about Russia's economic prospects and stability.
Both he and they are undoubtedly keen to avoid more sanctions.
The real test now will be whether any action follows these words - whether, in the event that a majority of Ukrainians do vote for a new president on Sunday.
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