War in Ukraine

As certainly everyone now by knows, Russia is now undertaking a full-black military attack on Ukraine. (Headlines at Memorandum.) 

Most major Ukrainian cities are being enveloped by rocket fire, artillery shelling, and airstrikes. Casualties have been reported (though not by official U.S. sources.) That war has broken out now, at this moment, when Russia's Vladimir Putin has had his eyes on taking Kiev (Ukraine's capital) since at least 2014, is no surprise to those who've followed events closely with a realist eye on Moscow's ultimate designs. 

This is not a partisan moment.

Presidents, diplomatic, intelligence, and defense officials in both parties are in one way or another implicated in what must be seen as a major failure of U.S. foreign policy, and that too of the institutional/diplomatic/military leaders in Europe, at NATO and the E.U., etc., not to mention presidents and prime ministers in the leading capitals across the continent. For 77 years, the policy of the Western democracies has been to deter a Soviet/Russian war in Western Europe, but here we are. 

At the video below, CNN correspondents were reporting live last night (our time) from Ukraine as the first artillery fire hit cities in the east. It's been reported that most all the major population areas are under attack and regime change in the Ukrainian capital city is a real possibility.

The is the first large-scale land war in Europe since 1945. It's a BIG deal with major implications for the United States and the world. 

It's actually very sad. Russia and the Ukrainians signed a non-aggression pact in 1994, when the Ukrainians gave up their nuclear weapons left over from the Soviet Union's Cold War arsenal. The U.S. then made guarantees to Kiev's protection but it looks now they've been betrayed, by parties all around. 

I'll have more throughout the day.