Blitzfail: Belarus is preparing to join the Russian invasion of Ukraine, possibly widening the geography of the war, The Washington Post reported last night, attributing its information to an anonymous US government official.

  Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

  This comes even representatives of Russia and Ukraine were meeting today for talks on the Belarus border. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky  said in a statement that his representatives would ask for “an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of troops,” but he expressed little hope of getting that.

   The lightning invasion of Ukraine seems to have stalled in heavy fighting at the end of Russian stretched supply lines. The Russians are reported to be short of both ordinance and fuel. Just one tank can burn 30 gallons an hour standing still.

   The Russians have failed to take the second largest city of Kharkiv, not far south of the border, and the capital Kyiv, both of which should have been targets to take within the first 48 hours. As the invasion stumbles, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has put his nuclear forces under heightened alert to ratchet up the pressure. 

  Although the Russians claim they are not targeting civilians, they have hit civilian buildings and areas. The country’s interior minister said yesterday that 352 civilians have been killed so far, some of them children. As many as half a million Ukrainians have fled the country.

  Video released online has demonstrated Russian losses although information is too sketchy to get the big picture.  A column of at least four armored personal carriers was destroyed and so were four Jeep-like Russian vehicles in a separate engagement. Ukraine’s former President Petro Porochenko said in a television interview that the Russians have suffered 4,500 killed, but that is not verified.

  Putin and his lieutenants are still attempting to justify their invasion with big lies that Ukraine is run by neo-Nazis and committing genocide. The Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, compared the Ukrainian forces to Islamic State terrorists and said the real threat to Ukrainian civilians came from them, not from the Russian army. In reality, Ukraine civilians have been arming themselves and making stacks of Molotov cocktails to drop on the Russians when they come to town.

  The US and other countries are taking measures to stall and hurt the Russian effort. Over the weekend, Russia was kicked out of the international money transfer system known as SWIFT, further isolating the Russian economy.  British Petroleum said it is bailing out of its cooperative deal with the Russian oil company Rosneft. 

  The European Union said it would ban all Russian aircraft and finance the donation of weapons to Ukraine, possibly including fighter jets. Germany announced a dramatic increase in its defense spending as well as plans to provide arms to Ukraine.

Collateral Damage: As day broke in Russia and international sanctions kicked in, the Ruble crashed in value by 25 percent, interest rates doubled, and citizens ran to the banks to withdraw cash. The Moscow stock exchange closed for the day. Sberbank Europe AG, the European subsidiary of one of Russia’s biggest banks, is hemorrhaging withdrawals and could be on the verge of collapse.

  In a further effort to financially isolate Russia, the British government has banned the country’s financial institutions from doing business with the Russian central bank as well as with its foreign ministry and sovereign wealth fund. 

  The European Union also has closed its airspace to all Russian aircraft.

Getting Warmer: Climate change is on the verge of overwhelming the ability of both man and nature to reverse it unless greenhouse gas emissions are quickly and dramatically reduced, according to a major new scientific report released today.

  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that rising heat and drought are killing crops and trees, putting millions of people around the world at increased risk of hunger and malnutrition, while diseases like malaria and dengue are spreading. Roughly half the world’s population currently faces severe water scarcity at least part of the year.

  United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, said, “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.”

  The report warns that if the world does not dramatically reduce carbon emissions, the future promises global population dislocation.

News About the News: CNN is doing a magnificent job of covering the war in Ukraine even while turmoil continues in the home office.

  The Wall Street Journal reports that an internal investigation has revealed that CNN’s recently-resigned Vice President Allison Gollust had given guidance to the network’s then star anchor Chris Cuomo on helping his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to deal with allegations of sexual misconduct. Chris Cuomo was fired because that’s a violation of company ethics. Gollust resigned because she was revealed to have been having an affair with company President Jeff Zucker, who resigned ahead of her.

  Coming in to clean up the mess as the new president of CNN is television veteran Chris Licht who created “Morning Joe” and turned around “CBS This Morning.” He’s currently the EP of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

The Spin Rack: The Department of the Interior is preparing to re-name 600 locations that bearing the name “Squaw,” a derogatory term for an American Indian woman. — In a book highly critical of Donald Trump, former Attorney Gen. William Barr says the prospect of the former president running again is “dismaying” and he urges the Republican Party to “look forward” to other candidates. He writes, “Trump cared only about one thing: himself.”

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