Western powers have vowed swiftly to toughen their stance against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine if they judge that today's peace talks are a failure and Moscow is to blame.
The United States is expected to move toward sending high-tech "defensive weapons" to Ukraine's government forces if the four-way summit makes no progress, and the European Union is set to tighten sanctions on Russia.
"There are risks, and if the latest diplomatic initiative fails because of the Russian position, new sanctions on Russia will follow already the day after tomorrow," German deputy foreign minister Gernot Erler said yesterday.
Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni – whose country is one of several EU states that have been reluctant to impose tougher measures on Moscow – said the failure of the meeting between Ukrainian, Russian, German and French leaders would be the Kremlin's fault.
In Russian hands
“This will be for Russia responsibility . . . It’s in Russian hands,” Mr Gentiloni said.
The EU said it postponed implementation of sanctions against a number of Russian officials this week to “give space” for today’s talks to succeed.
"The implementation was delayed for several days at the request of Ukrainians, who wanted that the other side has less pretext to refuse negotiations or negotiate in an unconstructive manner," said Lithuania's foreign minister Linas Linkevicius.
US president Barack Obama has resisted growing domestic pressure to send weapons to Kiev's forces, but made clear such a move would come a step closer if Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin did not rein in Ukraine's separatist rebels.
“If, in fact, diplomacy fails, what I’ve asked my team to do is to look at all options – what other means can we put in place to change Mr Putin’s calculus – and the possibility of lethal defensive weapons is one of those options,” Mr Obama said.
“I won’t prejudge whether or not they’ll be successful,” he added of today’s planned talks. “If they are not, then we will want to raise the costs. And we will not relent in that.”
Moscow accuses US
Moscow rejects a mass of evidence that it is providing weapons and other supplies to the separatists and western allegations that its soldiers are fighting in Ukraine, while accusing the US of using the conflict to destabilise Russia.
"For the US, Ukraine in and of itself is not a matter of interest. Their aim is to weaken our positions," said Nikolai Patrushev, a close ally of Mr Putin who heads the Kremlin security council.
"The Americans are trying to drag the Russian Federation into an international military conflict and, with the help of events in Ukraine, bring about regime change and ultimately dismember our country," he added. "If the US starts supplying weapons to Ukraine, then the conflict will only escalate further."
Nato members Lithuania and Poland have suggested they may supply arms to Ukraine, and British foreign secretary Phillip Hammond said London reserved the right to do the same and "could not allow the Ukrainian armed forces to collapse".
