Consigned to the back benches, party leader and deputy prime minister no more, Nick Clegg finds himself suddenly back in the spotlight … because he has been banned from Russia. Tragi-comic, perverse, regrettable – choose your adjective to describe this latest twist in international diplomacy.

Clegg is one of nine Britons and 89 European Union citizens on a list of prohibited individuals that Russia has now “shared with” Brussels, and the response was predictable. The bans were immediately condemned by the EU as arbitrary, unjustified and possibly illegal. A common conclusion was that Russia is deliberately escalating the conflict with the west over Ukraine to a new and even more dangerous level.

Tempting though it may be to see it in this way – especially for fractious Europeans in need of a new rallying point – this is not the only permissible interpretation. We could in fact be watching the latest mis-steps in the clumsy diplomatic dance that has Russia and the EU still treading on each other’s toes, just as the United States is trying to change the music. John Kerry, the US secretary of state (now recovering from a broken leg), stopped off in Sochi to meet President Putin two weeks ago, in a reopening of public contact that the EU has yet to follow.

Kerry holds talks with Putin during first visit to Russia in two years Read more

Throughout the east-west standoff over Ukraine, mistiming and misreading have been the norm, and the latest verbal sniping offers more of the same. Russian visa bans are not new; what is new is the “sharing” of the list – it has still not been officially published. But this comes in response to long-standing efforts by the EU for clarification from Russia about who is and is not subject to a ban. Now the Russians have apparently provided it: is this an unfriendly act or not? (And, they might ask, who started the war of visa bans anyway?)

Now consider who is on this list: not exactly A-listers. The vast majority are former this and former that. As well as Clegg, the UK list includes the former MP, former foreign secretary and former intelligence committee chairman Malcolm Rifkind. Speaking today, Rifkind said the Russian ban was proof of EU sanctions working, and he had no immediate plans to visit the country. Nor, no doubt, do Clegg, Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, John Sawers, the former head of MI6, and Nicholas Houghton, the chief of the defence staff.

Many of the others named – especially those from the former Soviet-bloc states – will see their visa ban as a badge of honour, validating their political stance. Karel Schwarzenberg, the former Czech foreign minister, spoke for many when he said that he felt pleased to be a member of a “very decent club”. For his part, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy must be laughing a self-promoting laugh all the way to the nearest EU-Russia border post, in the hope that he will be turned rudely away.

The publicity value of naming names is clear. But since the US and EU issued their first lists of banned Russians (and Ukrainians), in response to Russia’s formal annexation of Crimea, it has been hard to gauge their real intent. Do they represent – as western officials often insist – an attempt to hurt those who could influence Putin to change what is condescendingly called his “behaviour”? If so, the choice suggests a depressing degree of ignorance about who is really who in Russia and how the place actually works. Or might they rather represent an effort to score points while carefully trying to avoid breaking ties with Moscow definitively?

Now consider who is on this list: not exactly A-listers. The vast majority are former this and former that

The same questions arise with Russia’s list. If the Kremlin really believes that these people, separately or together, have the power to influence the stance of their government – or, even if they did, that they would be prepared to use that influence in Russia’s favour – then it is profoundly mistaken, and the targeting reveals a lamentable lack of judgment and up-to-date information. On the other hand, the selection could be expressly designed to make headlines while limiting the diplomatic damage.

It is a sad comment on the state of relations between the EU and Russia generally that it is so difficult to judge the true intent of either side. Are we looking at a sham diplomatic storm, or a real one? Either way, the timing is unfortunate. Last week, when Russia conducted a four-day air exercise, and Nato began a fortnight of nine-nation manoeuvres in the Arctic, official condemnation, even reporting, was muted; there seemed a deliberate effort on both sides to keep the temperature down.

Similarly in relation to the Minsk agreement; the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine is being violated regularly on both sides, but it is also – sort of – holding. There have been no new Nato accusations about Russian advances; the much-trailed assault on the port of Mariupol has not happened. And another separatist commander, Alexei Mozgovoi, has left the scene (killed by a bomb attack on his car).

None of this means there will not be a new flare-up, or worse. It does mean that the prospects for peace or war are finely balanced, and that the initiative taken by Kerry (and Putin) should not be cut off before it has really begun. The imperative at such a time is to make sure that any diplomatic signals being sent, however tentative and ambiguous, are not misread.