At a January 8 press conference, German chancellor Angela Merkel dangled a carrot in front of Russian president Vladimir Putin: the possibility of a summit in Kazakhstan aimed at easing the Ukraine crisis, to be attended by her and the leaders of France and Ukraine. That carrot, however, was dangling from a significant string. For the meetings to occur, Merkel said, Russia would first have to make “visible progress” on all 12 points of the Minsk accord, the agreement that brought a shaky cease-fire to eastern Ukraine this past September, as reported in the New York Times.