Here's an update from RFE/RL's news desk:
Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak has said Russia would likely suspend supplies of gas to Ukraine before a March 2 meeting in Brussels that aims to resolve this latest energy dispute between the two countries.
Speaking at an economic forum in Krasnoyarsk on February 27, Novak said the state-controlled Russian company Gazprom has still has not received a $15-million pre-payment for March.
Under a deal brokered in October by the European Union, Ukraine is meant to continue receiving Russian gas but must pay in advance.
Ukrainian energy company Nafotgaz complained earlier this week that it was not receiving the full of gas it paid for in advance.
Gazprom responded that some of the gas was sent to areas in eastern Ukraine which are under the control of pro-Russian separatists.
The suspension of supplies to Ukraine could affect supplies to Europe.
Novak told reporters at the economic forum that he would be in Brussels for the March 2 meeting.
(TASS, Interfax)
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today by pointing you in the direction of a blog written for Reuters by the Brookings Institution's Fiona Hill in which she analyses some of the issues that may be lurking behind the fagile cease-fire in eastern Ukraine:
So where are we now in this giant war game? On Feb. 24, we appeared to enter what Moscow might term a “political-diplomatic phase.” This was the first full day without casualties since the Feb. 12 Minsk agreement. As [chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, Valery] Gerasimov asserted in his speeches, the goal of an asymmetric hybrid war is to achieve objectives without launching a full-blown conventional military war. Hybrid war has many weapons and many ways of fighting.
Diplomacy can be one of them. In late January, the United States government debated whether to send arms to the Ukrainian military. The intent was clearly to push Putin from covert to overt support of the rebels — and into a conventional war. Instead, however, Putin was able to push the U.S. debate into the background by plunging into diplomatic negotiations with the Ukrainian president, the German chancellor and the French president — which ultimately resulted in the second Minsk agreement.
The agreement, in spite of its references to foreign fighters, maintains Russia’s position that the war in Ukraine is between Kiev and the Donbass “armed formations.” The arrangement also provided enough diplomatic cover for the rebels to rout the Ukrainian army from the town of Debaltseve, a railway hub that connects Donetsk and Luhansk.
The timing and wording of the agreement’s provisions that Putin directly hammered out provided sufficient strategic ambiguity for the rebels to press their advantage. As Gerasimov noted a year ago, “political-diplomatic and foreign economic measures … are … closely interconnected with military, information, and other measures.”
Now that the rebels have consolidated their area of control, one operational phase of the game seems to have concluded. Putin bought time for the rebels to take Debaltseve. With the rebels having secured a position of strength on the ground, the ceasefire can now be enforced.
In the next phase, Putin and the rebels will likely regroup. They will pocket whatever concessions they can take from Kiev. They will then likely reassess what they need to do militarily, politically and economically in the next phases of the proxy hybrid war to maintain pressure on Ukraine and the West.
This sort of tactical maneuvering is something Putin learned in the KGB. As circumstances change, you step back and see how everyone else reacts. You have to be willing to adapt and have a range of backup plans to keep one step ahead of your adversaries.
If the military part of an operation runs into a problem, for example, try another approach. If diplomatic efforts don’t bear the fruit you want, look elsewhere. You just have to be willing to use all methods available — and be ruthless to achieve your goals.
You can read the entire blog here. (Incidentally, RFE/RL's resident Kremlin-watcher Brian Whitmore also pursued a similar line of thought here)
Barring any major developments, that concludes our live blogging for Thursday, February 26.