Ten fateful forks in the road to Crimea

Regret suffuses the post mortem on many a conflict, with hindsight recommending alternatives that were far less obvious at the time. Crimea is different. Rarely can the fateful choices — those critical forks in the road — have been so evident as those that have led Russia, Ukraine and the West into this conflict.

A different choice at any one of these 10 junctures could have averted immediate danger and indicated a route back to safety:

1. Last summer it became apparent that Russia and the EU were increasingly at loggerheads over Ukraine

It was Vladimir Putin’s Eurasian Union vs the association agreement on offer from Brussels. As November drew closer, the EU – in part, perhaps, because hawkish Lithuania held the presidency — treated Ukraine’s decision as a now or never choice between East and West, even though Ukraine’s disunity, and discomfort, were clear for all to see. The option was there to defer any signing or to explore – as the European elder statesman, Romano Prodi, among others, suggested – some interim arrangement.