By Gwynne Dyer

On one hand, eastern Ukraine appears to be slipping out of the government’s control as pro-Russian groups seize control of official buildings in big eastern cities like Donetsk and Luhansk and demand referendums on union with Russia.

They almost certainly do not represent majority opinion in those cities, but the police stand aside and people who support Ukrainian unity are nervous about expressing their opinions in public.

On the other hand, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has just announced that the EU, the United States, Ukraine and Russia will all meet somewhere in Europe next week to discuss ways of “de-escalating the situation in Ukraine.”

That will be the first time Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has agreed to meet with a representative of the Ukrainian government.

So, is this crisis heading for a resolution or an explosion?

It still depends on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks that the annexation of Crimea is enough compensation for the humiliation he suffered when his ally in Kiev, former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown by a popular revolution.

And, clearly, Putin hasn’t yet decided that himself.

Rationality says take your winnings to the bank and quit while you’re ahead.

Putin’s action has guaranteed almost any imaginable Ukrainian government will be hostile for the foreseeable future, but the NATO countries will be willing to forget about Crimea after a while if he goes no further.

Does he really want the United States, Germany, France and Britain as enemies, too?

The temptation is there.

Putin’s agents are everywhere in eastern Ukraine.

He has 40,000 troops ready to go at a moment’s notice just across the frontier and all the Russian navy’s amphibious assault ships are now in the Black Sea.

He could grab the Ukrainian coast all the way west to Odessa at the same time.

The Ukrainian army would fight, but could not hold out for more than a day or two, and NATO would not send troops.

Why not do it?

There are lots of good reasons not to.

Putin would face a protracted guerilla war in Ukraine — he would call it terrorism, of course.

He would find himself in a new Cold War Russia would lose much faster than it lost the last one: it has only half the population of the old Soviet Union and now depends heavily on Western markets for its modest prosperity.

Putin would find new NATO military bases opening up in various countries on Russia’s borders that joined the alliance for safety’s sake, but have so far not allowed foreign — such as American and German — troops to be based permanently on their soil out of consideration for Russian anxieties.

He really shouldn’t even consider grabbing Ukraine, but he is a man with a very big chip on his shoulder.

So, what sort of line should the Europeans, Americans and Ukrainians be taking with Russia next week?

This is about hard power, so appeals to sweet reason are pointless.

Sanctions are also irrelevant: This has now gone considerably beyond the point where gesture politics has any role to play.

The economic and strategic prices Russia would pay need to be big and they need to be stated clearly.

But, at the same time, Russia’s own legitimate concerns have to be addressed, and the main one is its fear that Ukraine might some day join NATO.

That requires a firm commitment Ukraine will be strictly neutral under international guarantee.

Russia will also try to get a promise that Ukraine will be federalized, but that is none of its business and should be rejected.

In the meantime, the shambolic Ukrainian provisional government needs to get a grip: Not one of its leading figures has even visited the east since the revolution.

In particular, it needs to take control of police in the east, whose commanders were mostly Yukanovych’s placemen, and restore the chain of command from Kiev to the local municipalities.

It will then be relatively easy to take back the occupied government buildings without violence.

Just stop all movement in or out, turn off the water and wait.

None of this stuff is rocket science, but it’s not being done and the situation is getting steadily worse.

Finally, money.

Russia, under relatively competent authoritarian rule, has a GDP per capita of about $14,000.

Ukraine, after a quarter-century of incompetent and sporadic authoritarian rule, has less than a third of that: $4,000 per head.

It helps that Russia has a lot of oil and gas, but the contrast is huge and Ukrainians are aware of it — especially in the east.

Ukraine needs lots of money in a hurry to stay solvent while it holds an election on May 25 and sorts itself out politically.

And, if all of that is done, maybe Putin will settle for Crimea and put up with the prospect of having to live next door to a neutral, but democratic, Ukraine.

Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist based in London, England.