At the same time that the Ukrainian military is demonstrating that it is unable to protect it's territory from Russian-inspired/sponsored lawlessness, the wheels are coming off the Russian economy.
Which country will fall apart first? Maybe its economic problems will get Russia to work harder to find a way to de-escalate in the today's talks Or maybe, it gives them an incentive not to resolve the crisis because the Russian economy was hitting the skids even before this crisis made it worse and if the crisis goes away, Putin won't have those nefarious foreigners and their sanctions to blame then the economy starts to drag down his approval numbers (assuming approval polls are still permitted in Russia if Putin's numbers go seriously south).
