Russia's Potemkin Drawdown

The West’s political leaders have to put principle above the special pleading. Ukraine lived peaceably as a sovereign state since becoming independent in 1991; the rebellion in the east is manufactured by Russia to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty. The United States and Britain guaranteed support for that sovereignty in 1994 when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. Now Ukraine’s government has offered generous terms to the rebels in the east. Mr. Poroshenko has promised and pushed forward reforms that would give the region more autonomy and protect the use of the Russian language. Though he has every right to secure his country’s borders and combat a radical insurgency within Ukraine, Mr. Poroshenko unilaterally established a cease-fire and offered amnesty to separatists.