Created On Monday, 10 February 2014 13:49

The deal involving US $15 billion has dug such an unbridgeable gap between the two countries and their political elites that Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych themselves, the two men Moscow most loved to hate, could not have done as well.

There were many expectations of the meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents in Sochi—cutting financial deals, agreeing candidates for the PM’s seat, and, in the end, deciding just how Ukrainian regime should respond to its unresolved political crisis. In the end, no meeting actually took place. An announcement by the Russian President’s press secretary that a rendezvous “on Olympian fields” was little more than excuse, the typical line Putin’s administration offers whenever  its boss simply doesn’t want to see someone.

At the Olympics opening ceremony, Sochi-2014 (photo: Myroslav Otkovych)