Putin's Latest Victory

At WSJ, "The Minsk accord ratifies a Russian satrapy in Ukraine":

The last time the Kremlin signed an agreement to end the war in Ukraine—as recently as September—it promised to withdraw “military equipment as well as fighters and mercenaries” from the war zone, ban offensive operations and abide by an immediate cease-fire. In exchange the Ukrainian government granted unprecedented political autonomy to its rebellious eastern regions.

Moscow and its proxy militias in Ukraine have been violating the so-called Minsk Protocol ever since. Russian troops and equipment have poured across the Ukrainian border to support the separatists. Together they have seized an additional 200 square miles of territory, rained deadly rocket fire on the port city of Mariupol and encircled thousands of Ukrainian troops defending a strategic railway link in the village of Debaltseve.

So what better time for Vladimir Putin to agree to another cease-fire that consolidates his military gains, extracts additional political concessions from Kiev, puts off further Western sanctions, and gives President Obama another diplomatic alibi not to supply Ukraine’s demoralized and ill-equipped military with desperately needed defensive weapons?

That’s our read of the deal reached in Minsk on Thursday between Mr. Putin and Petro Poroshenko, with Germany and France acting as handmaids to the Ukrainian president’s forced capitulation. In theory the agreement requires the departure of “mercenaries” from eastern Ukraine, the creation of a buffer zone between the two sides, and a pullback of heavy weapons from the front lines. It also calls for a cease-fire to begin Sunday morning, local time.

But these are all but identical to the commitments Moscow has already broken, and nobody should be surprised if separatists and their Russian patrons use the next 48 hours to press their advantage in Debaltseve. Worse is that the agreement forces Kiev to fork over additional gifts to the breakaway regions, including an independent police force and the resumption of pension and salary payments for state employees. Ukraine must settle for a promissory note from Mr. Putin that he will allow Ukraine to regain control of the border with Russia.

All of this gives the Kremlin the benefits of establishing a de facto satrap without having to foot the costs of sustaining it or assume political responsibility. It turns eastern Ukraine into another of Russia’s “frozen conflicts,” akin to those it has with Moldova over Transnistria or Georgia over Abkhazia, with an option of taking the conflict out of the freezer at will. Merely the threat of doing so will give Mr. Putin a whip hand over Kiev should it continue to seek closer ties to the European Union and NATO.

Then again, nobody should be surprised if this cease-fire collapses as quickly as the last one did. The eagerness with which France and Germany proved willing to renegotiate a cease-fire that Mr. Putin had already broken only shows that future violations will carry no real price. So he will continue to alternate between brute force and fake diplomacy, as his political needs require...

More.