McConnell Backs Tough Sanctions on Russia

“Ratchet the sanctions all the way up. Don’t hold any back. Every single available tough sanction should be employed and should be employed now.”

— Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that President Biden should increase sanctions against Russia “all the way up” after Moscow began a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, The Hill reports.

Navalny Condemns Russian Aggression

“The war with Ukraine has been unleashed to cover up the robbery of Russian citizens and divert their attention away from the country’s internal problems, from the degradation of its economy.”

— “Aleksei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition politician, used a court hearing on Thursday to condemn President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” the New York Times reports.

Russian War in Ukraine Not All on the Battlefield

“The biggest problem for Ukraine and its allies is that Russia knows this battlespace well — and undoubtedly has been recruiting a network of Ukrainian double agents. These agents can sow havoc for a resistance movement by revealing its leaders, safe houses, communications and plans of attack…. And it gets worse: A trademark of Russian intelligence, for a century, has been its ability to manipulate resistance groups in Ukraine and elsewhere so that they were actually controlled by the Kremlin.”

— David Ignatius

Rather Warns of Home-Grown Quislings

“Beware of the armchair generals… it is easier to opine when you are not on the battlefield and the acuity of your predictions will not be measured in lives lost. But there is something else this time around, something new that I have never seen before on the scale we are witnessing. There are many in this nation, cheered on by powerful media voices, who seem more aligned with a dangerous foe to America and a peaceful world order than they are with our own leadership. Our divisions are a weakness that our enemies eagerly exploit. Whether willingly or not, we do their bidding with our bickering. To reduce the world order to shortsighted political calculations is to undermine our own national security.”

— Dan Rather, Steady Blog