UKRAINE CRISIS DEEPENS – AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  The tensions in Ukraine are building, not declining.   From The New York Times: 

KIEV, Ukraine — Pro-Russia militants seized more state offices in Ukraine’s troubled east on Tuesday, in apparent defiance of the latest Western sanctions announced against them and their presumed backers in the Kremlin, which also showed no sign of wilting in its worst confrontation with the West in decades.

Speaking to reporters in Belarus, President Vladimir V. Putin said he had vetoed suggestions within the Kremlin that Russia respond in kind to the latest sanctions. “The government has already proposed some steps in response, but I consider that there is no need for this,” Mr. Putin told reporters, according to the Interfax news agency. But if it continues, he said, Moscow will have to think about who works and how they work in key sectors of Russia’s economy, including energy.

Mr. Putin was in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, to attend the summit of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council — the economic bloc of former Soviet republics he started in order to try to counterbalance the draw of the European Union. Its viability without Ukraine has been called into question.

COMMENT:  Plainly, our sanctions aren't doing much damage, and Russia shows no signs of buckling.  One reason for our weakness, of course – aside from Obama's weak overall policy – is that the Europeans are reluctant to pressure Russia further.  There is a great deal of commerce involved, and there are still plenty of influential figures in Western Europe who retain a soft spot in their hearts for Communism and the Kremlin itself.

The key question is whether Russia will invade Ukraine directly, with the intention of seizing its eastern provinces, or whether the pro-Russian fighters and terrorists in Ukraine itself can tip the region toward Moscow without direct Red Army intervention.

April 30, 2014