Today is Thursday, February 24, 2022. Today the world was saddened to learn that Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war against a peaceful sovereign country, Ukraine. This military assault was executed by land, air, and sea that has left dozens dead already, prompting Western leaders to condemn Moscow and vow unity with the Ukrainian people.

This update on the worsening situation in Eastern Europe was covered in an online CNN article written by Michael Chance, Nathan Hodge, Tim Lister, Laura Smith-Spark, and Ivana Kottasova entitled “Peace in Europe ‘shattered’ as Russia invades Ukraine.”

Ukrainian ministers said the Kremlin had begun a “full-scale invasion” of their country, and the fighting appears to be some of the worst conventional warfare Europe has seen since World War II and the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s. In response to the conflict, markets plunged across the globe, even though some indexes have rallied since the start of the armed conflict.

Attacks and explosions have been reported throughout Ukraine, including in the capital, Kyiv, where air sirens rang out this morning and afternoon.

Officials in the country believe Russia’s plan is to overthrow the Ukrainian leadership and install a pro-Russian government. That is why Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky said he believes “enemy sabotage groups” had entered Kyiv and that he was their No. 1 target. His family, he said, was the second target. Zelensky added, “They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state.”

According to preliminary figures, 137 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the invasion began early this morning, Zelensky said, with another 316 soldiers wounded.

Western leaders, except for an idiotic ex-president and other Putin puppets like “Fucker” Carlson and his ilk, were united in their swift and strong condemnation of the Kremlin’s military action. Today President Joe Biden asserted that Putin had “committed an assault on the very principles that uphold the global peace.” The U.S. President added, “Now the entire world sees clearly what Putin and his Kremlin allies are really all about.”

As a result of Russia’s naked aggression toward Ukraine, a new raft of sanctions were announced by Biden to punish Moscow, some of which limit Russia’s ability to do business using important global currencies such as the dollar and the euro and target Russian banks that together hold around $1 trillion in assets. Stating the obvious, Biden declared, “Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences.”

Speaking in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg described Russia’s attack on Ukraine as a “brutal act of war” and said it put “countless innocent lives” at peril.

The world waited with bated breath as the Russian dictator repeatedly denied any plans to invade Ukraine even though he was massing approximately 150,000 troops around Ukraine’s borders , but decided to do it anyway in a televised address early this morning. The first blasts were heard at around 5 a.m. local time Thursday and it quickly became apparent that Moscow’s military assault was not limited to eastern Ukraine.

CNN teams on the ground heard explosions in and near multiple Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv; the second-largest city, Kharkiv; Odessa; and distant firing from Zaporizhzhiya. Russian forces also seized the Chernobyl power plant, the scene of Europe’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986.

The violence near the capital forced families to crowd into subway stations, as city authorities issued an air raid warning and urged residents to seek shelter underground. Across the country, Ukraine’s subway stations are doubling as bomb shelters, as the incursion continues and fears of strikes grow.

The typical reaction among ordinary citizens to the assault seems to veer toward shock, as one woman in Kharkiv told CNN, “You wake up at 5 a.m. to a totally new reality, and you find out the world is no longer the safe place you imagined.” This response seems to reflect what many Ukrainians must assuredly feel toward their country being invaded by a power-mad dictator.

What must be considered the height of irony from the Russian military is this statement claiming that it was not targeting Ukrainian cities, saying “the civilian population is not at risk.” Still, many Ukrainians chose to leave the capital, while others hunkered down in shelters.

Let’s hope the sanctions imposed on the Kremlin will give Putin some pause in his brutal actions toward Ukraine. What I find encouraging is seeing people protesting in the streets in Moscow against this war. Since the announcement of the country going to war with Ukraine, protesters have come out in impressive numbers to protest Putin’s decision to invade a sovereign, free country. Could Putin put all of these peaceful demonstrators in jail in order to silence them? Russians are not being fooled by the bullshit being fed to them by their tyrannical leader. This is a good sign of how things could proceed at this very tense time in the world’s history.

Let’s severely punish Putin where it really hurts: in the pocketbook. The European Union is doing exactly that by issuing a long list of economic sanctions against Russia, with some of them including travel bans and asset freezes. Russia is now banned from raising funds in European capital markets through short- and long-term bonds. These sanctions target those Uber-rich Russians oligarchs who prop up the corrupt president. Some of those very powerful figures who will be negatively affected by these sanctions include senior banking executives, a prominent news anchor, the head of a global television network, and a Russian businessman with links to a mercenary group. This list is found in a New York Times article today entitled “Europe Hopes to Pressure Putin By Crimping Cronies’ Lifestyles,” by Matina Stevis-Gridneff.

It’s getting late here. I just wish this conflict could be resolved very soon with not too much bloodshed, if at all possible.

Stay safe and be well.