For the past four months, a shaky truce has been largely holding in eastern Ukraine, with pro-Russian separatist forces and regular Ukrainian units holding fire in a conflict that has claimed more than 6,000 lives since March 2014.
Both sides still do exchange small arms fire on occasions, but the large calibre weapons have been muzzled and removed from the conflict zones around Donetsk and the Ukrainian-Russian frontier. That these exchanges take place despite the ceasefire deal is a reflection of just how delicate things remain on the ground, with local separatist commanders acting independently with little overall cohesion and united largely by support to and from Moscow.
The government in Kiev faces a challenge in that there are strong ultranationalist forces at play who are eager to confront Russia and the separatists, holding long-standing historical grudges against Moscow over actions that go back to the very founding days of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the civil war that followed.
Now, however, given the delicate nature of the ceasefire, is not the time for these ultranationalist Ukrainian sentiments to be unleashed and, indeed, if that were to be the case, the result would be even more bloodshed, violence and ethnic strife.
The reality is that Ukraine remains highly volatile. The sooner the better for all that meaningful peace talks are brokered once more. Until then, the conflict is a tinderbox set to reignite at any moment.