Live Blog: Ukraine On The Brink

Now all the likely outcomes are bad. Perhaps the authorities will decide that they cannot crush the protesters and will draw back, meaning months of tension, jitters and uncertainty. Even then, Ukraine’s territorial integrity has been shattered, perhaps fatally. In the west, government buildings have been set ablaze. The region – the old Austro-Hungarian Galicia – was the site of a decade-long insurrection post-war against Soviet rule. If pro-Moscow authorities in Kiev try to crack down there, civil war looms. That involves not just human suffering (and quite possibly large numbers of refugees) but also economic dislocation and grave risks of outsiders being drawn in. What happens if someone – a real or invented band of nationalist guerrillas, say – attacks one of the east-west oil or gas pipelines?

Equally worrying is Crimea, which could now be the flashpoint for another conflict with Russia, with far more devastating effects. The region is on the verge of declaring independence from Kiev (a move likely to prompt Russian intervention to protect the separatist statelet).

If the crackdown continues, and succeeds, we will see a dreadful roll-back of the gains of the past 10 years. The newly passed repressive laws will be used in full, not just against public protest but against independent media, civil society, and other institutions. We may see the reintroduction of a visa regime for visitors from Western countries. All kinds of foreign-related and foreign-sponsored activity will be impeded or banned. Ukraine will become another Belarus.

Once the country is at the Kremlin’s mercy, Mr Putin can extort a heavy price. He is known to disparage the very notion of Ukraine’s statehood, in public and in private. He could demand that it join a Russian-led security alliance. Russia’s military integration with Belarus is already proving a headache for Nato, which is struggling to work out how it can defend Europe’s north-eastern flank with its slender remaining resources. If the regime in Kiev proceeds with military and security integration with Russia, Central Europe will experience what the Baltic states have felt for several years: the icy sensation of a hard security threat.