Russian sabre-rattling over Ukraine demands a different response

Russian heavy armour is on the move, and Moscow is making no move to hide it. Is this the prelude to a new upsurge in fighting in south-eastern Ukraine, or especially brutal sabre-rattling? The problem is that we don’t know – and this challenges our usual responses.

The war in the Donbas – neither civil war nor straightforward foreign intervention, but a messy and toxic mix of the two – has tended to flare up at the end of winter. As thick spring thaw mud begins to dry, campaign season begins.

Politically, it already has. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, both on its own merits and also, presumably, because his poll ratings had slumped, had turned on opposition politician and self-proclaimed ‘personal friend’ of Vladimir Putin, Viktor Medvedchuk. He and his wife were put under sanctions, and three TV channels he owned were blocked.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces along the ‘line of contact’ dividing government-held and rebel territories were reinforced.