Ukraine So Far

Ukrainians - you magnificent bastards.

We're coming up on 96 hours, and the Russians still haven't taken Kyiv or Kharkiv - and they haven't managed to gain air supremacy yet.

Putin's nuclear alert is worrisome, but it could be a sign that he's getting a little panicky.

Every day that Ukraine holds out makes Putin look a little weaker, which can always mean he gets more dangerous.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Putin puts Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday put nuclear deterrent forces onto high alert, in response to sanctions and what he called “aggressive statements” from the West against Russia.

It’s a major escalation of tensions with NATO after Western nations announced plans to restrict the Russian central bank from its foreign currency reserves and cut off certain Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system.

“Top officials of the leading NATO countries also allow aggressive statements against our country,” Putin said at a Kremlin meeting Sunday, as he ordered Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov to put the nuclear deterrence forces into “special combat duty.”

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview on “Face the Nation” that Putin’s order was a “totally unacceptable” sign of escalation.

“We have to continue to stem his actions in the strongest possible way,” she said.

But I think there may be reason to believe Putin is about to get some serious trouble from the inside.

The sanctions imposed by most of the world's major players could fuck up Russian Oligarchs pretty bad, so they won't look kindly on Putin's bluff-n-bluster. Shit's bad for business.

And going around threatening to nuke the world just isn't going to set well with the Russian military folks who know for a fact that while everybody loses in a nuclear exchange, Russia will be burnt to cinders, and the west, though badly bloodied, will not be beaten.

I'll hazard a guess and say Berliners know
a fascist asshole when they see one.