How to Fix the Eastern Ukraine Problem

Perfection is impossible in conflict resolution, and it's usually easy to spot the weakness of paper plans. But the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, has devised a plan for resolving the simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine that avoids all the usual traps. If adopted, it would seem to offer the most realistic hope of a breakthrough.

Eastern Ukraine may be out of the headlines, but sporadic fighting between Ukrainian and Russian-sponsored forces continues. People die almost every day, and so far, no one has come up with a way to defuse the tension, much less resolve the underlying issues. Russian-Ukrainian talks mediated by France and Germany have produced the difficult-to-implement and thus largely stalled Minsk agreements. Recent negotiations between Kremlin representative Vyacheslav Surkov and U.S. special envoy Kurt Volker look as though the sides aren't listening to each other.