As Russian-backed rebels entrenched themselves in a newly captured, strategically located town in southeast Ukraine on Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin bluntly strengthened Moscow’s hard-line position that the government in Kiev must be compelled to negotiate regional autonomy.
Abandoning his more frequent conciliatory stance, Mr. Putin issued a rare, open, congratulatory message to the insurgents. They had “achieved a major success in intercepting Kiev’s military operation,” he said on his website.
Behind the message, and the wider military operation, analysts saw several Kremlin goals. Most important, they said, is that Mr. Putin wants to force terms, first laid down in March, built around political changes in Ukraine that would weaken central government authority and ensure that the country cannot escape Moscow’s orbit — and certainly never join NATO or other important Western alliances.
