AT A strangely stilted press conference six weeks ago, just after the annexation of Crimea, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, was asked if Russia would fight a war with Ukraine. “I want you to understand me clearly,” he answered. “If we make that decision, it will only be to protect Ukrainian citizens. And let us see if [Ukrainian] troops try to shoot their own people, with us behind them—not in the front, but behind.”

Intended to reassure Russians, his words carried a sinister double meaning: Russia was prepared to use Ukrainian civilians as human shields. Now it is doing so. In the past week it has engineered a situation in which the Ukrainian government must either appear entirely ineffectual or risk attacking some of its own citizens and, in so doing, provide a pretext for further Russian action—even, perhaps, invasion.

On April 6th armed men seized the administration buildings in Donetsk and Kharkiv, as well as the security-service buildings in Luhansk—the three capitals of Ukraine’s eastern provinces. Barricades went up and local enthusiasts gathered on them, but without massive public support. On April 12th, in an apparently co-ordinated way, the crisis moved to a new phase. Police and security-service buildings fell to rebels in towns all across the region, many of them situated on road and rail links that would have strategic value in the event of a Russian invasion. These smaller, poorer towns where the family of the deposed president, Viktor Yanukovych, has strong influence were an easier target than the cities.

Unidentified, well-equipped soldiers led many of the occupations. They were followed by local armed separatists and ordinary civilians. Many police officers switched sides. Russian television channels, disconnected a few weeks ago because of their ceaseless propaganda, have been turned back on. Passing through a checkpoint set up by pro-Russian rebels in Sloviansk, 100km from Donetsk, a man on the barricades says cheerfully that the situation unfolding is “just like Crimea”.

Alien invasion

Russia denies that the “little green men” who co-ordinated the occupation of Crimea, some of whom have now been seen in Donbas, are its soldiers. But last year Russia’s defence ministry boasted about the creation of a “special operations” unit comprising personnel who could act as “illegals” in neighbouring countries, and many think this has now been seen in action. Ukrainian security forces say they have intercepted a telephone conversation between pro-Russian forces and their Russian minders in military intelligence.

The occupations have shown how little authority Ukraine’s government has in the east. Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and presidential candidate, urged the government (which she effectively controls) not to use force. One reason is her lack of confidence in Ukraine’s security services. A botched operation would enrage the public and give Russian forces a pretext to move deeper into Ukraine. Another reason is the presidential elections scheduled for May 25th, which Ms Tymoshenko still hopes to win, despite trailing behind Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire who supported the February revolution.

The acting president, Oleksandr Turchinov, pledged large-scale anti-terrorist operations, issued ultimatums and set deadlines—but to little effect so far. On April 15th government forces freed a small airport at Kramatorsk which had apparently been taken by militants, but which does not seem to have been defended. “It looks a bit farcical,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a journal. “The militants are pretending that they are taking control of things and Ukrainian forces are pretending they are freeing them.” The farce could yet turn bloody. As The Economist went to press, armoured personnel carriers containing Ukrainian troops who had surrendered to pro-Russian crowds were entering Sloviansk. In a telephone call to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, on April 15th Mr Putin described Ukraine’s operation as a serious escalation. Ukraine, he said, was on the brink of a civil war. This was what he said about Crimea to justify annexing it, citing NATO’s action in Kosovo—which at the time Russia deplored—as a precedent. Mr Putin would not need a genuine conflict, such as that in Kosovo, to make a move; but there are enough pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian feelings on the ground to spark one. Though Mr Putin may yet move militarily against Ukraine, perhaps under the guise of a peacekeeping mission, perhaps even to recognise independence for the south and east, he seems unlikely to want to annex any more of the country. The bribes that would be needed to ensure the acquiescence of a good chunk of the population would cost a great deal. In Crimea Russia has pledged to bring salaries and pensions up to Russian levels; to do the same for Donetsk would cost twice as much. Subsidising the region’s coal mines, as the government in Kiev has done for years, would be another burden on the Russian economy. Much better simply to gain influence on the government in Kiev by turning the east into a constant source of trouble which keeps Ukraine chaotic, dysfunctional and unpalatable to the West. “Bringing the troops across the border would be seen as a failure of the Kremlin’s game,” says Mr Lukyanov. Alexander Dugin, one of Russia’s most vocal imperial nationalists and anti-American ideologues, agrees that an occupation of south-eastern Ukraine would not be in Russia’s interest. He argues that the Maidan revolution in Kiev was an American plot to drag Ukraine into the European Union and NATO. Having failed to make this happen, Mr Dugin says, America is now trying to provoke violent clashes to justify putting NATO military bases in Ukraine.

As Russia’s plans depend on a new federal structure for Ukraine which gives increased power to the areas over which it holds sway, it might seem odd that the most recent flare up of separatism in the east began just after Arseniy Yatseniuk, Ukraine’s acting prime-minister, confirmed that the government intended to decentralise power and engage with local elites there. Rinat Akhmetov, who controls a great deal of industry in the Donetsk region and is Ukraine’s richest oligarch, volunteered himself as a mediator. Those might seem to be the sort of moves towards federalisation that Russia would seek to encourage.

But they are also developments designed to build bridges between the government in Kiev and the businessmen and politicians in the south and east, and Russia wants none of that. Pro-Russian forces are stirring up anti-oligarch sentiment because Russia knows that they might back the central government rather than see separatism ascendant. What is more, for Russia to endorse the government’s effort would be to recognise its legitimacy and that of the revolution which swept it to power, both of which the Kremlin rejects (it refers to Ukraine’s government as a “junta”). Thus a proposal by Mr Turchinov to hold a national referendum on federalisation was almost ignored by Russia.

Rather than allowing the government in Kiev to delegate power to the regions, the Kremlin needs the eastern regions to grab power for themselves, creating parallel government structures that undermine the central government’s legitimacy. That is why Mr Putin wants a representative from southern and eastern Ukraine at international talks on the crisis—a proposal Ukraine, Europe and America reject.

Russia’s short-term objective is to sabotage the elections. “National elections cannot take place without Donetsk,” says Maksim Shevchenko, a journalist close to the Kremlin. Its long-term aim is to stop Ukraine ever moving towards Europe. Given that the February revolution was powered by aspirations to do just that, this would provoke unrest in Kiev and in western Ukraine. That is not a problem for Mr Putin. Russia wants to turn Ukraine back into a buffer state, with a level of disorder it can turn up or down. In the end, Ukraine may end up barely a state at all.