Obama's Ukraine policy in shambles

 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/obama-ukraine-russia-putin-219783

. even some Western officials concede that the Russians have a partial point. "The implementation of Minsk now is more or less frozen," said a European diplomat. "Unfortunately, the Ukrainians are now actually carrying a big part of the responsibility of the blockage, because of the crisis in Kyiv."
Such talk from Europe is ominous given the pressure European leaders are facing to end sanctions on Moscow, which have slowed their economies and cost their businesses profits.
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And although Putin dialed down the violence in Ukraine's east last fall, Obama officials have been alarmed by a recent spike in fighting there. It remains unclear whether Putin is escalating the conflict, officials say, or if the separatists might be acting on their own.
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"Minsk is now in tatters. Western attention at the highest level is gone due to the migration crisis and the Obama administration's priorities lying elsewhere," said Andrew Weiss, a former Clinton White House national security aide now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The whole thing just looks really messy."