Ukraine’s political elite is hoping that plummeting oil prices will restrain neighboring Russia’s interventionist ambitions—and give Western sanctions on Russia a bit more bite. Recent diplomatic overtures have raised hopes in Kiev that Moscow—which annexed Crimea and has supported eastern Ukrainian separatists in a conflict that has claimed more than 9,000 lives—is charting a somewhat more conciliatory course. With crude about $30 a barrel, Ukrainian officials are cautiously optimistic that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his oil-dependent government will be forced to rein in a muscular foreign policy. “If you have money, you can be macho,” said Boris Lozhkin, the head of the administration of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. On the official level, relations between Moscow and Kiev remain extremely cold. Direct flights don’t operate between the two capitals, and the two sides still trade strong rhetoric. In a recent interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper, the Ukrainian president […]