L’analisi di Stefan Meister pubblicata dallo European Council of Foreign Relations. Un’analisi che personalmente condivido in pieno:

Russia’s current provocations in eastern Ukraine and the presence of Russian troops on Ukraine’s eastern border are aimed at influencing negotiations with the European Union and the United States on the future status of Ukraine. Russia does not intend to annex eastern Ukraine, but it wants the West to accept a status of limited sovereignty for the country. Annexing eastern Ukraine would be too costly for Russia, both in economic and political terms. And any Russian efforts to absorb more Ukrainian territory would provoke resistance from Ukrainian society.
Vladimir Putin wants to dictate Ukraine’s future constitution in order to impose a federalised structure on Ukraine and to compel the central government to give more autonomy to Ukraine’s regions. Everything he is currently doing is intended to improve his bargaining position with the West. Moscow’s preferred model is based on the German federal system: it would like to see the Ukrainian parliament include a strong second chamber, in which the regions would be able to influence the national agenda. Russia wants to ensure a weak Ukrainian government and president. This would enable Moscow to influence decision-making through its involvement with Ukraine’s eastern regions, which would develop close economic and political ties with Russia.
Western commentators are wrong to think that Russia is interested in stabilising Ukraine. Putin will consider only two options for Ukraine: either federalisation or a failed state. The current Russian policy is managed destabilisation. Russia is trying to undermine the legitimacy of the government in Kyiv by demonstrating that the government cannot control the country. Other instruments of destabilisation include Gazprom’s recent increase in Ukraine’s gas prices to the highest level paid by any country to the Russian energy giant, as well as Moscow’s demands that Ukraine pay back all its energy bills and loans. […]

As long as no pro-Russian candidate has a chance of victory, Moscow will not support Ukraine’s May presidential elections. It would prefer to come to an agreement with the EU and the US on Ukraine’s future. But Putin is no longer willing to make compromises with the West about the future of Ukraine. If it cannot gain more autonomy for Ukrainian regions under a Russian diktat, Moscow will destroy the Ukrainian state rather than allow it to integrate into the EU or NATO. Putin sees Ukraine as Russian territory, and his campaign to “bring Crimea back home” was well received by the Russian public. […]