The Russian-Ukraine crisis is reaching its culminating stage with the much anticipated and transparently staged ‘provocation’ in the Donbas. This is how the playbook tells us that President Putin creates his pretext for war. A manufactured threat to the enclaves in Eastern Ukraine was always one potential casus belli, even though it does not relate to the big Russian theme of the past few months, which is that urgent action is needed to redress the bias against Russia in the European security order.