Snip

The West must stand up to Russia over Ukraine or Europe could descend into a major war for the first time since 1945, diplomats warned today as efforts to negotiate peace hung by a thread.

As the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, prepared to brief Barack Obama in Washington on Monday about the state of the negotiations, a former US ambassador to Ukraine predicted that Estonia and the other Baltic states – all members of Nato – could be Vladimir Putin’s next targets if he is allowed to hold on to territory won by force.

Ms Merkel, who strongly opposes arming Ukraine, spent the weekend desperately trying to negotiate with Mr Putin. In a four-way phone call yesterday afternoon, the German and Russian leaders agreed with the French President, François Hollande, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, that they would meet in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, on Wednesday.

The Estonian President, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, compared Western inaction against Russia with the appeasement of Adolf Hilter in 1938, when Nazi Germany was alllowed to seize parts of the former Czechoslovakia.

“We know from history that appeasement will never satisfy those that are being appeased,” he said. “Munich ’38 I think should be a lesson to all of us even today.”

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond accused Mr Putin of “acting like some mid-20th century tyrant”, while the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said he would “fear the worst” if peace talks this week failed.