Conflict management does not happen in a political vacuum, but is carried out in a more or less benign political environment. Therefore, the first part of this brief essay deals with the recently changed nature of the political relations between Russia and Western States, having shifted from a primarily cooperative to a primarily confrontational one. The second section introduces some principles for multilateral conflict management that are even more important in a confrontational setting, but much more difficult to implement. Finally, how conflict management works in practice and how typical difficulties can be addressed will be analyzed in more detail, using the example of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine.