NATO reacts as Russia fires nearly 400 drones at Ukraine

Russia launched nearly 400 drones and dozens of missiles across Ukraine overnight Monday, triggering NATO to scramble fighter jets in neighboring countries, according to reports.

The massive aerial assault killed at least four people and injured more than two dozen, with strikes hitting multiple regions including Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, The Associated Press reported, citing Ukrainian officials.

Poland and Romania both scrambled fighter jets as Russian strikes approached NATO airspace, East2West reported, with Warsaw placing air defenses on the "highest state of readiness," Poland’s operational command said.

"Due to the activity of long-range Russian air forces conducting strikes on Ukrainian territory, Polish and allied air forces have begun operating in our airspace," Poland’s operational command said, according to East2West.

What one sees in these episodes is not mere battlefield friction but something deeper: the grinding insistence of one power upon the sovereignty of another, and the nervous vigilance it provokes among those who share a border with the conflict.

Hours earlier, two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled in fellow NATO state Romania as Russian drones attacked Ukraine near the River Danube, the outlet reported. The Danube forms part of the border between Ukraine and Romania.

Ukrainian military leaders said Russian forces have intensified attacks along the roughly 750-mile front line, with hundreds of assaults reported in recent days.

The Institute for the Study of War said the escalation suggests Moscow’s long-anticipated spring-summer offensive is now underway, according to The Associated Press.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched nearly 400 drones. Ukrainian officials later said most were intercepted or disrupted, although some were able to hit their targets, according to East2West.

Russia also launched 23 cruise missiles and seven ballistic missiles at Ukraine during the night, hitting at least 10 locations across the country, according to the Ukrainian air force.

Ukrainian civilians have endured relentless barrages since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor more than four years ago. U.S.-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv over the past year have brought no respite, with Russia rejecting Ukraine’s ceasefire offer.

The latest strikes came after Ukraine hit Russia’s largest Baltic port, Primorsk, in a pinpoint attack a day earlier, leaving the key export hub in flames, East2West reported.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambassador to London, Andrey Kelin, threatened "dire" consequences over what he said was Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow missiles, which this month hit and damaged a microelectronics plant in Russia’s Bryansk region.

"The British, without whose participation the use of Storm Shadow missiles is simply impossible, decided to remind everyone of both Ukraine and themselves," he said. "However, any action has consequences. And for everyone involved in the tragedy in Bryansk, the consequences will be dire."

One cannot help but note the symmetry here, or rather the absence of it. When Ukrainian forces strike at Russian infrastructure, the response is often framed as escalation, as though the original invasion itself were not the originating sin of the entire tragedy. Yet when Russian barrages rain down on Ukrainian cities, the language turns clinical, technical, almost detached, as if describing a weather event rather than a sustained campaign against a civilian population.

This is the moral asymmetry that has defined so much of the Western commentary on this war: a reluctance to call things by their proper names, lest the clarity prove inconvenient.

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Ukraine's Zelenskyy calls on UN to remove Russia as member of UN Security Council: that isn't enough

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: this is how a leader leads

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the United Nations to remove Russia as a member of the Security Council and thus take away their vote as the fourth day of Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine arrived. This seems like a no-brainer, but we're talking about an organization that is as useless as a roll of toilet paper to an alligator. 

It would make no difference to Putin, who has his mind already made up to rekindle a new Soviet Union.

As you read this, Russian troops have advanced on Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv and the fighting is brutal. The Ukrainians are out-manned and out-gunned, as the illustration below shows, but their fighting spirit is high and they have a president who, along with other high officials, are willing to literally fight in the streets.

On Sunday, Putin raised the alert status for nuclear forces to "special regime of combat duty." He ordered the Russian defense minister and chief of the General Staff of the military to install nuclear deterrent forces in a "special regime of combat duty," which signals the possibility of a nuclear war.

"He is right now threatening a nuclear escalation," said former DIA intelligence officer Rebekah Koffler. "This a veiled threat – or maybe such a veiled threat - he just met with his chief of general staff and minister of defense. He is escalating the conflict into the nuclear domain in order to de-escalate – that is topple Kyiv’s regime quickly."

President Zelenskyy announced Sunday morning that the Ukraine government has completed its application to the International Court of Justice and hoped the court would hold Russia totally responsible for the invasion of Ukraine and unmask Russia's propaganda campaign to justify its aggressions toward his country.

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The International Court of Justice pretends to be one of the most powerful courts of international law on the planet and holds jurisdiction over all of its members. It is supposed to be used to arbitrate disputes between non-member nations [in this case Ukraine] when requested to do so, but if anyone thinks Russia would comply with the court's findings, is fooling themself.

Joe Biden: This is how a house plant sleeps

Putin must be stopped and the West must step in and unite to end his regime. The UN is not going to do it, nor are sanctions that avoid cutting off Russia from selling their energy. The only thing a violent dictator understands is strength and that is precisely what we need to show, and if necessary, use.

Suspending Putin as honorary president of the International Judo Federation ain't gonna cut it.

The U.S. could have provided weapons to Ukraine long ago; instead we sold weapons to Saudi Arabia, a country whose human rights history is horrible. What is wrong with this picture?

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