Russia and the West meet for a crucial week of diplomacy

AS RUSSIAN TANKSNATOOSCENATONATO poured west, heading from Vladivostok on the Pacific coast to the border with Ukraine, American diplomats headed east. Not since the Balkan wars of the 1990s has Europe seen a week of such crucial security summitry. On January 10th American diplomats met Russian ones in Geneva. Two days later the -Russia Council convened in Brussels. On January 13th the diplomats headed to Vienna for a gathering of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (), a group of 57 countries.The purpose of this frenetic diplomacy was to prevent a war. Russia’s government has demanded, among other things, that and pull back from places that used to be part of the Soviet Union. It wants members to stop co-operating with Ukraine, and a legal guarantee that Ukraine and Georgia will never join the alliance (something those countries have previously been promised). America and its European allies have agreed to discuss the Kremlin’s stated grievances, while beefing up their defences and threatening sanctions should Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, attack Ukraine again.