Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has long had trouble understanding that the Western support of his government is conditional. Now the leaders of France and Germany have told him that in no uncertain terms: The cease-fire agreement for eastern Ukraine has just been recast to put the onus on Poroshenko, rather than on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Going into last Friday's negotiations with French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Putin in Paris, Poroshenko was looking belligerent. He had just delivered a hard-hitting speech at the United Nations, entirely devoted to Russia's depredations against his country. His interior minister, Arsen Avakov, was boasting that the Ukrainian National Guard had "finally" received U.S. sniper rifles and anti-tank grenades.
French diplomat Pierre Morel, who has been in close contact with Moscow and the Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, prepared a plan for the Paris meeting of the four leaders to approve. According to Morel's proposal, Ukraine would need to pass a special law setting out rules for the local elections in the rebel-held areas of Ukraine.