While athletes competed for gold in Rio, Russia turned up the heat in Crimea. On Wednesday, Russia issued a statement that they had foiled Ukrainian attempts to conduct terrorist acts in Crimea, and that two Russians had been killed by Ukrainians. Russia’s President Putin accused Ukraine of trying to provoke a conflict, that there were no prospects for continuing the Minsk Peace process, and that Russia would hold war games in the Black Sea.

I often say that what happened in Polish-Ukrainian relations after the fall of the Berlin Wall was a geopolitical revolution. I compare it to the French and German reconciliation in the 1950s. While that laid the foundation for a new post-war Europe, a Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation creates the possibility of this construction extending further East. Moreover, the stakes in Polish-Ukrainian relations always were, and indeed continue to be, about more than just Poland and Ukraine.

A review of Richard Sakwa’s Frontline Ukraine. Crisis in the Borderlands. Published by I. B. Tauris, London, 2015.