All signs pointed to a continuing diplomatic battle over Ukraine's territorial integrity and what could prove a broader fault line in Europe's post-Cold War order.
While East and West no longer threaten nuclear war and have vastly expanded commercial ties, Russia is determined to dominate the future of the former Soviet republics along its borders. Washington, its NATO partners and others across the continent are striving to pull these nations out of Moscow's orbit.
Yes, we are trying to help Ukraine forge its own path. But this crisis has been going on for months now--and the battle for years.
When Russia has been winning even though Russia has been applying raw power and bribes to swing Ukraine east, the West never even threatened military force.
It did not take long--delayed only by the ongoing Sochi Olympics--for Russia to invade Ukraine to take Crimea and begin the forcible integration of Ukraine into Putin's new empire.
And the West's offer of freedom and prosperity contrasts with Putin's vision for Ukraine--which he doesn't even consider a real country--as a subservient buffer zone and path to threaten the rest of Europe from his new outpost.
Don't even pretend that Russia is no better and no worse than the West in competing for the future of Ukraine.
