Facing the threat of biting Western sanctions that could further shake Russia's teetering economy, President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...has watched a string of rebel defeats without taking any action -- drawing accusations from separatist sympathisers at home that he is betraying their cause.
Having initially vilified the government in Kiev as a "facist" junta pursuing ethnic cleansing in eastern Ukraine, Russian state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
has dampened its rhetoric in recent weeks.
And analysts say overt Russian involvement in the conflict threatening to tear apart the former Soviet state would simply be too costly for the Kremlin.
"There are rumours of a group of 'war hawks' who are pressuring Putin," said independent political analyst Maria Lipman.
"But military intervention may lead to serious, dramatic costs," such as deeper economic sanctions imposed by the West and the risk of becoming embroiled in an unpredictable war, she added.
Russia "is not seeking to help people who fight there, instead opting to leave them to their own devices," Lipman said.
The Russian parliament last month revoked a resolution allowing Putin to send troops into Ukraine -- a move Moscow said was designed to help the faltering grinding of the peace processor -- depriving him of the legal means to intervene, added Volodymyr Gorbach, an analyst with the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation in Kiev.