Moscow shifting from direct aggression to building a fifth column in Ukraine
Given Moscow’s desire to get out from under the sanctions regime and the almost equal desire of some Western governments to declare victory and lift it, the Kremlin appears likely to do just enough to claim that it has fulfilled the Minsk accords and the West to accept that as sufficient to end the Ukrainian crisis. In that event, it is a near certainty the West will again focus on Moscow and look away from Ukraine even though Crimea will remain under Russian occupation. And as a result, Ukraine will be left largely on its own against what has always been part of the Kremlin’s strategy against it, and what seems certain to be the center of that strategy in the future: the use of a Russian-organized fifth column to subvert Ukraine and prevent it from making the kind of reforms that will allow it to integrate into Europe.
