Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow (Russia) on March 27.MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV / SPUTNIK / K / EFE
The worrying escalation of tension in recent days in eastern Ukraine once again brings to the fore a major security conflict in Europe, which requires all necessary containment measures.
At the same time, the episode reminds the European Union that - despite its many problems - it cannot neglect a complex situation with the potential to have serious consequences and that it faces with much improvement in internal cohesion.
There are three elements that have generated the alarm in a situation of larvae war that dates back to 2014. First, the death of four Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk region, controlled by a pro-Russian separatist guerrilla politically and materially supported by Moscow.
The military did not fall in a sporadic skirmish, but in the course of sustained artillery fire in what constitutes a break from the ceasefire maintained since July last year.
Second, the unusual accumulation of Russian troops, both on the border with Ukraine and in - the one invaded and annexed in 2014 - Crimea, which apparently does not respond to the cycle of usual Russian military maneuvers.
Finally, there is the verbal escalation that these events are causing, especially from Moscow.
Although it is difficult to glimpse the exact reasons and intentions of Vladimir Putin, recent history shows that it can be useful for his short-term purposes to promote international agitation, to seek a unifying external enemy that distracts from internal critical voices both for his management of the pandemic and for the systematic harassment suffered by the opposition.
If it occurs, it would be an unacceptable strategy.
Russia must refrain from fomenting instability in Ukraine.
As a first response, both the explicit US support for Ukraine - including Joe Biden's call to his Ukrainian counterpart - and the tone of concern expressed by the EU through its foreign policy representative, Josep Borrell, are both correct.
But it takes much more than words.
The situation in Ukraine must be redirected.
And for this it is essential that the EU - with other problems at the moment and important dissensions within it regarding the policy to be followed with Moscow - act with efficiency and unity, update its own strategy and tune it in with the new Administration in USA, without losing autonomous voice.
Every aggressive gesture from Putin reminds that this is not an option, but a necessity.
The severity with which the pandemic hits Ukraine underscores that the risks of crisis and destabilization cannot be underestimated.
The EU cannot allow a neighbor like Ukraine to spiral into trouble.
It is an issue that cannot be on the margins of the European agenda.