Ukraine conflict escalates.

ECONOMIC AND MILITARY STAKES GET BIGGER

SOME HOPE RUSSIA DOES NOT CONCLUDE THAT THEY ARE IN A WAR OF SURVIVAL 

After 5 days of war in Ukraine there is no solid conclusion to what the outcome will be. It is doubtful that Russia will back down in their demands concerning NATO expansion. Much is being made that the Russian advance has been slow and want to portray the situation as the Ukrainians are winning this war. It is obvious that Russia has been dismantling the organized military with a clear goal of minimizing civilian casualties. It is still unlikely that Russia has a goal of occupying the cities of Ukraine.

Hopefully they will not get into a position that they feel they need to unleash the complete destruction of the Ukrainian infrastructure. Hopefully they will not come to conclude that this is an all out war for Russian survival. There appears to be some that believe that this an opportunity to put an end to Russia. The political opportunists on both sides have continued to use this sad situation as leverage. The left blaming Trump or taking remarks out of contexts and the right egging Biden on to be more forceful. Little thought to the lives of the Ukrainian citizens who will suffer the most from this EAST/WEST political war.

Ukraine will not win this conflict, Russia can not back down now. This conflict could have been avoided, but now it has taken on a life of its own. This hot war is a result of over a decade of political cold war.

Russia, concerned about the war talk by some in this country, has put its whole country on high alert. You can bet there are some factions who are coaxing Biden to take action by committing NATO to take part in the war. If NATO does not walk carefully, we will be in WW3. Rather than hope that the Ukrainians will be able to damage Russia and Putin permanently, they should be working to bring a negotiated end to this crisis. It may be too late.

We hear that NATO is planning to send weapons to Ukraine. How do they plan to get these shipments into Ukraine? Will Russia allow air traffic from NATO into the country? Some say they are going to ship these weapons through Poland. Is Poland willing to have these weapons go through their country? How would you like to be a driver of these trucks? It can be expected that Russia will attack these shipments as soon as they cross the border, or possibly before. Will this then trigger article 5 and require an all out European war?

Economic stakes have also been escalated with the denial of Russia from transactions through SWIFT, except for those concerning energy transfers. Russia's main economic weapon would be to cut energy flows to Europe.  This would plunge the western world into a severe depression that would also have unseen and uncalculated repercussions. This is indeed dangerous times.