German-led diplomatic efforts has shifted, according to senior officials, towards urging restraint from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and averting a humiliating defeat for pro-Russian rebels, a development that Berlin fears could elicit a strong response from Putin.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s planned visit to Kiev on Saturday, her first since the crisis erupted at the start of the year, is above all a signal of support for Poroshenko, the billionaire confectionary magnate who was elected less than three months ago.
But the German leader is also expected to use the trip to try to persuade Poroshenko, and nationalist hardliners in Ukraine who want to press their military advantage and crush the separatist rebellion in the east, to think hard about the consequences of such a course.
It might be a brilliant political move to declare a referendum for Donbas.