Vladimir Putin continues to keep the world guessing as to his true intentions in Ukraine. The government in Kyiv fears an invasion, a perfectly legitimate conclusion to reach with 100,000 Russian troops on the border. Moscow denies any such plan which, if true, suggests a show of force designed to bring about some other outcome. Russian demands that Nato should promise not to extend membership to Ukraine or any other sovereign nation considered to be within the Kremlin’s sphere of influence are clearly unacceptable and Mr Putin must know that.

If he is seriously not contemplating an invasion, his main aim must be to sow discord and expose division in the West. In this he is succeeding. Despite the best endeavours of Nato leaders to insist that a united front has been established, the cracks are there for all to see.

The EU has pointedly declined to follow the US and the UK in withdrawing some embassy staff from Ukraine, claiming such a response was inflammatory. The biggest obstacle to a common approach appears to be Germany, which has shown ambivalence to calls for heavier sanctions on Russia and increased arms sales to Ukraine.

Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, who briefed EU foreign ministers yesterday about his talks with Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, is trying to maintain the pretence of unity, insisting that Berlin is fully on board. But that is not how it looks. The head of the German navy resigned at the weekend for dismissing as “nonsense” the idea that Russia was planning an invasion. In addition, Germany has declined requests to send arms to Ukraine and has even stopped Estonia, a Nato member, from doing so.

A new poll indicates that most Germans do not subscribe to the central Article 5 tenet of Nato that an attack on one member is an attack on all. The Berlin government is hamstrung by an energy policy that involves abandoning nuclear power and becoming more dependent on Russia for gas.

The threat to scrap the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia would look more credible if Germany had any obvious alternative energy sources. For Mr Putin to send his troops back to barracks after so much sabre-rattling risks his being seen as weak. But he can make it look less like a climbdown than a victory if he manages to debunk the notion of EU unity on a key matter of defence and foreign policy.