Tomorrow is the deadline for both sides to create a buffering zone along the frontline by withdrawing their heavy weapons but it unlikely that such deadline will be respected. Ukrainian army declared that given the current situation they are not going to move the artillery back, while rebels announced that they are going to do it tomorrow; however, as the exact same thing happened last week, there are enough reasons to believe that this would not happen. Finally, OSCE’s SMM itself stated that monitoring operations were have been restricted by third parties.

From the frontline to politics. Political confrontation is still tight and what can be called as the “war of world” is not stopping. Ukrainian President Poroshenko promised that Crimea will be part of Ukraine again; Russian President Putin rejected accusations according to which Russia was involved in last year Maidan bloodshed and stressed the importance of Minsk agreement to be respected; and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin accused Russia of having started “an hybrid war on a large scale in Ukraine”[2] and asked for a United Nations intervention on the ground. On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the idea of providing the Ukrainian army with “lethal weapons” is heavily debated: while Republican senator Mc Cain is pushing in this direction, US NATO ambassador Douglas Lute declared that, although it is still an option, Obama is not going to decide something in the next few hours and that allies would be consulted first[3].

Back to the frontline: How is the crisis going to develop? Given the current situation, there are four potential scenarios in the foreseeable future: international diplomacy succeeds in making the opposing forces respect the agreements; diplomacy fails and does not stop the fighting; diplomacy fails and the United States give weapons to the Ukrainian army, the United Nations intervene deploying a mission on the field. Should the US decide to delivery weapons to Kiev, not only would the crisis get worse on the ground but also at political level, especially in terms of bilateral relations US-Russia. At present, it is hard to believe that diplomacy will completely succeed; therefore the ongoing-fighting scenario appears to be the most plausible one. A UN operation would be the most desirable option, as remote as it could be: not only would the United Nation guarantee the truce on the field but would also take on the role of “diplomacy booster”.