John Kerry has arrived in London to have talks with Philip Hammond in a weird atmosphere in which words like land grab and craven are used to describe the Russians.
This blog has always held the Kiev government and its supporters who toppled the previous government a year ago responsible for the chaos now engulfing Ukraine. There is no need to rehearse again the reasons why, but a trawl through old posts will act as a reminder. The difference now is that more and more western correspondents and TV crews are getting into the eastern provinces behind rebel lines and more and more interviews with suffering civilians are being broadcast which throw ever more doubt upon the integrity of the West’s posture in this crisis. On top of that we yesterday had the scathing report from the House of Lords which spoke of misreading the crisis and a lack of analytical skills at the Foreign Office.
Talk of the territorial integrity of the Ukraine is meaningless. Through its own ill advised actions, spurred on by some reckless promises from the EU which were undeliverable and should never have been made, the Ukraine is now broken up and will not be put back together. Crimea has gone, the eastern provinces are going and what is left will just have to make the best of the bad job of which it is the architect.
And as for the UK, the EU and the US, they will have to pick over the shambles of their diplomacy and learn some very useful lessons.