(Foreign Policy) The "let's make a deal" moment has arrived for Kiev and Moscow. But by pushing a hard-line agenda against Putin, the United States and Europe are only making things worse for Ukraine.
Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Kiev last week for his third visit to Ukraine's capital in the past seven months. He arrived bearing gifts: additional nonlethal military aid for the embattled Ukrainian government, including body armor, helmets, night-vision goggles, and countermortar radar. The first three of 20 promised countermortar radar systems were flown to Ukraine aboard a cargo plane accompanying Air Force Two the day the U.S. vice president arrived. Following the Nov. 3 separatist "elections" reports of Russian tanks rolling across the border, and with the Minsk cease-fire agreements in tatters and almost 1,000 dead in the past two and a half months, this quite literal "deliverable" for Biden's visit — combined with some tough words in public for Russian President Vladimir Putin ("Do what you agreed to do, Mr. Putin") — is certainly appropriate. […]
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