By establishing a frozen conflict in Donbas, Russia has jammed a thorn into Ukraine’s side and, in the short run, complicated relations between Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko and the country’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. But it has also guaranteed that, in the longer run, the Ukrainian state will be reconsolidated around anti-Russian sentiment and policies – meaning that Russia will be unable to normalize its relations with Ukraine for decades.