The crisis in Ukraine has the United States, Europe and Russia in a diplomatic bind, analysts say, with little immediate prospect for a lasting solution.
Presidential elections in Ukraine are set to take place on May 25. But there is a growing fear amongst top U.S. and EU officials that instability and violence they say is backed by Russia will derail the vote.
With near daily clashes in east Ukraine, top U.S. and European diplomats on Tuesday warned that if Russian interference halts the election, there would be consequences.
“If Russian elements continue to sabotage these elections, then we stand ready to implement more sanctions,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said following talks with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. “We will not sit idly by while Russian elements fan the flames of instability.”
But analysts say that so far, Western action – a combination of tough talk and targeted economic sanctions – has not calmed Ukraine and or led to fruitful dialogue with Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed to have shifted his confrontational tone on Wednesday, vowing to remove Russian troops from the Ukraine border and calling on pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine to delay a referendum on to break away from Ukraine on May 11.
But White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest responded by saying there was no evidence a withdrawal had taken place. NATO also says it has not seen any a pullback of Russian troops. And separatist groups the Russian president’s call, pledging to go ahead with the referendums.
Still, some analysts say the Putin overture could pave the way for fruitful talks.
“Putin has likely been concerned by the escalating violence in the east,” said Thomas Graham, Senior Director at Kissinger Associates, Inc. and a former top advisor during the Bush administration. “Given how he has positioned himself - defense of Russian and Russian speakers - he is under pressure to send in troops.”
"But if he does it will not be another Crimea,” he added. “There will be bloodshed.”
Putin has calculated the time has come to give diplomacy a chance, says Graham, knowing that he can easily return to a harsher position should negotiations go nowhere.
Between the United States and Europe, Europe stands to invite more pain – both financially and politically -- in trying to stop Putin’s moves to restore Russia’s place on the world stage, analysts say.
Consider this: about a quarter of the EU’s gas supplies come from Russia.
According to the New York Times, amounted to almost $370 billion in 2012, compared with U.S.-Russia trade of $26 billion.
For the United States, the issue is largely ideological – annexing Crimea has redrawn the map of Europe, setting a very dangerous precedent in violation of international law, analysts say.
And they say there is reason to believe that the Obama administration – while presenting a united front publically – wants Europe to take the lead in punishing Putin.
“I think there are definitely tensions,” said Kathleen McNamara, director of the Mortara Center for International Studies at Georgetown University.
“I think that Americans find it very hard to understand the nature of the European project, to understand the outlook that the Europeans have on foreign policy, which is very different from the much more activist, much more geopolitical view that we have in the United States,” McNamara said.
Which is why the West is somewhat hamstrung by its current policy in this crisis – one which has pushed the European Union way out of its comfort zone, according to McNamara.
“I think that it’s incredible cognitive dissonance because the EU was really founded on a rejection of this geo-political, territorial incursion. You know carving up the world…and they’ve been very, very successful amongst these great powers who had been fighting each other for centuries,” she said.
But Putin didn’t “read the memo” about the 21st century being a century of international law, McNamara said, putting Europe in a very uncomfortable position.
“It’s a situation for which the tools that they’ve developed and the perspectives that they’ve developed on how to how to create stability and how to create political order are really outside this particular situation,” she said.
While the U.S. and Europe have slowly ratcheted up sanctions since March, they aim to punish wealthy people close to Putin in the hopes that the flight of investment and capital will force the Russian leader’s hand, analysts say.