**Russia is providing a special status for war-torn eastern Ukraine  as “a step in the right direction”. The Poroshenko government in Kiev cautioned that a drop in Russian natural gas supplies could hobble the EU this winter. **Yesterday Obama drew a hard line on sending U.S. forces into “another ground war.

We are back from the long holiday weekend and over the long weekend German chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that the fighting was a "conflict between Ukraine and Russia". It is a no longer a EU vs. Russian issue. Putin has played the EU and Obama well and can now.