More than 100 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the anti-Moscow alliance may be confronting the limits of its unity.

    French President Emmanuel Macron became the latest to draw fire for his suggestion that it would be unwise to “humiliate” Russian President Vladimir Putin with a resounding defeat, a prospect few expected to be grappling with when the Kremlin launched its war and inspired a terrifying clarity among the U.S. and its allies.

    But — thanks in part to the success of its effort to rally behind Kyiv — the West is showing signs of growing divisions.

The fissures say as much about the psychological scars from a century of war on the continent as they do about the current conflict. They also speak to unanswered questions about how the war might end as the fighting grinds toward its fourth month in a back-and-forth battle for eastern Ukraine.

    On one side are France, Germany and Italy, who appear to favor calling for negotiations and cease-fires rather than unconditional military support of Ukraine. They have been accused of either hesitancy over sending weapons or worrying too much about what might happen if Russia loses.

    Some officials and experts say that by trying to play the role of honest brokers, those countries are giving false balance to a war with one clear aggressor — signaling to Putin that Western resolve is wavering.

    On the other side are the Eastern Europeans, some of them ex-Soviet states, who along with the United Kingdom are ironclad in their at-all-costs approach to Ukrainian solidarity. Critics say that risks entrenching a forever war in Europe — and an escalation with nuclear-armed Moscow.

    “So far we’ve done remarkably well, but I’m not optimistic about what happens next,” said John C. Kornblum, the U.S. ambassador to Germany during the Clinton administration. “Putin has scared the West with his nuclear saber-rattling.”

The “so far” scorecard includes multiple rounds of sanctions and a European Union embargo against nearly all Russian oil, as well as Finland’s and Sweden’s appearing set to join NATO.

    But for many, cracks are showing.

    The E.U. oil embargo was held up and watered down by protests led by Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, and NATO’s big moment to showcase its Nordic expansion has been undermined by Turkish objections. But while those issues have been driven by a pair of perennial troublemakers in the West’s midst, the cracks are clearest over arming Ukraine and confronting how the war might end.

    Over the weekend Macron told French newspapers that the West shouldn’t humiliate Putin but instead allow him an “exit ramp through diplomatic means.”

    The anger from Ukraine was swift. To it, Macron’s comments were a capitulation, offensive musings about the wisdom of humiliating an aggressor when its people are being slaughtered.

    “Calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and every other country that would call for it,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.