Peace or war? The tipping point is near

These are grim days for Europe. Increasingly observers are seeing parallels between what is happening in Ukraine today with the Austrian Anschluss and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Indeed, just like Neville Chamberlain 77 years ago, we have French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel scuttling around European capitals with yet another peace plan, yet another proposal for a ceasefire.

They are good people, honestly working to extract the continent from the deepening mire which Russian President Vladimir Putin has fermented in Ukraine – but just like the German Fuhrer of past times Putin will likely accept the plan, promise to do everything he can to end the fighting, and then continue on the same course he has been pursuing over the past months.

That is to ensure enough Ukrainian territory is captured to provide a land bridge between the Russian mainland and the Crimean Peninsula which he seized last year as the next stage in his long-held dream to rebuild the old Soviet Empire.

And of course he will continue with the fiction that his invasion is actually an internal popular rising of eastern separatists determined to shake off the oppressive yoke of the ‘illegal Nazi regime’ in Kiev.

Separatists who have somehow obtained so much sophisticated weaponry that they are able to smash their way through the professional Ukrainian army; separatists whose offensives always seem to coincide with convoys of Russian ‘humanitarian aid’ in unmarked, covered trucks.

Yet when this is pointed out to Russia’s representatives in international forums, the faked outrage is worthy of any melodrama. It has been said the grim Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, is in the job because he is the only one able to keep a straight face when delivering his risible messages.

There is, however, one major difference between events of 1938 and today. All those years ago the United States was a neutral observer, the feeling there that it was Europe’s problem to solve.

Today the American attitude is very different and in Washington over the weekend the debate is shifting, probably decisively, towards supplying the Government in Kiev with the weapons its forces desperately need.

As the invaders rollup more territory – around 500 square kilometres in the past four months by most accounts – and as Ukraine’s under-equipped defenders face an armoured assault which includes Russian-built T-80 and T-72 tanks, the tipping point is fast approaching.

Washington is holding off for the moment, giving the Hollande-Merkel peace initiative one last chance, but if the White House sees that plan is going the same way as September’s failed Minsk Agreement it will act, and the heavy transports will be taking off for Kiev carrying the means that will enable the country’s beleaguered forces to properly fight back.