Vladimir Putin has officially declared war on Ukraine

So true…this is the first time in my life that in real time, we are seeing a brave leader under fire, in dire circumstances.

My heart goes out to him, his cabinet, their families and all the families of Ukraine 🇺🇦.

Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau ran away like a little baby when truckers started honking at him.

So an off-topic post. Did he really? Our Canadian peas will know more, but I understood that his life was threatened. Is this not accurate?

What do you think about the situation in Ukraine?

So brave. I hope they are able to stay safe.

General Bone Spurs and Captain Cancun can't even fathom this kind of humanity and bravery.

I pray for all the people of Ukraine and everyone helping them win this fight.

Even Putin’s own people are against this invasion: Moscow did not get the memo: Russians greet Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine with dismay, not enthusiasm

...several thousand people, mostly young, poured onto the streets holding signs condemning the war their president had unleashed against their brothers and sisters in Ukraine. They chanted, “Net voine” (“No to war”). The same words were splashed with paint on the glass doors of the Russian state Duma, the parliament that had almost unanimously supported the invasion.

The protests lacked political leadership and organisation, and were not big enough to prompt the authorities to reconsider the war. But they expressed the dominant feeling among Russia’s educated class. “Pain, fury and shame–these are three words that define our attitude to what is going on,” a statement from the dwindling band of independent media outlets read.

Journalists, artists, celebrities, rock stars and bloggers have been speaking out. “Fear and pain,” wrote Ivan Urgant, a popular host on state-owned television, on his Instagram. Monetochka (“Little coin”), a pop star, published a photo of her own face, weeping, with a sign: “So ashamed!”

So far there have been no resignations among senior officials, but neither has there been any enthusiasm for war. Sergei Utkin, a security expert who had previously peddled the Kremlin's line on foreign policy, wrote on Twitter, “My country is committing a horrible crime in Ukraine that can have no justification…We all bear a part of responsibility. There is no good way out of that.”

A petition against the war has gathered 500,000 signatures in a single day, and is growing. Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s main pro-opposition newspaper, came out in two languages, Russian and Ukrainian. Its editor, Dmitry Muratov, the most recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote that Mr Putin “is spinning a nuclear button around his finger like some expensive car key chain…But we can never recognise Ukraine as an enemy. And never will.”

The only ones that seem really excited are the sock puppet accounts on Twitter

What really got me today was watching ordinary Ukrainian citizens stand in front of Russian tanks. That puts shit in perspective REAL FAST!

Riiiiiiiiight….
🙄🙄🙄

OMG I have tears, they are saying that teenagers 13, 14 and 15 year old are picking up guns to fight.

It is one of the most difficult things for me to get my head around, as a U.S. resident. Unless you immigrated here, you've just never lived in a place where anything like this has happened.  I can't imagine facing this. 

I can say that if we need to do some sacrificing of convenience here to help the effort there (in various ways), I feel like it is the absolute basement level of what I can do.

And the US has authorized I think it was $350M in weapons today.

No, go ahead! 

Germany has also halted certification for Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline project from Russia to Germany. I don’t expect they can completely cancel the project, but this is still a significant move.

(I am not going to make comments judging whether Germany was right or wrong for partnering with Russia to begin with. I do not live in a country that has a shortage of affordable energy options, so I have not walked in their shoes.)