Given both sides’ inflexibility, what is the point of the meeting?

According to officials from the most vocal and oldest NATO members, Wednesday is an opportunity for the alliance to lay down a firm and unified position: If Russia does escalate tensions, it will face “serious economic consequences. We will use tools that weren’t deployed in 2014.”

Officials who spoke to CNN were not forthcoming on what those tools would be because “signposting them would give Russia the opportunity to prepare for them, defeating the purpose,” however it’s fair to say that they would be a mixture of hard economic sanctions and even more NATO on Russia’s doorstep.

Risky as Western hostility might be in provoking Putin, inaction could be worse. “Capitulating to out-of-this-world demands would make the overall situation much more dangerous, as it would just embolden the Kremlin to act aggressively,” says Pasi Eronen, research analyst at the Conflict Studies Research Centre. “Moreover, China and other revisionists are watching the reaction to a Kremlin gamble.”