Send tips and thoughts to rheath@politico.com. Check out the weekly Global Insider podcast. | Follow Ryan on Twitter. With Ukraine's capital Kyiv under siege — pounded by missiles — just a day after Russia declared war during a U.N. Security Council designed to prevent it, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered a general mobilization of the population including a ban on men leaving the country. The West remains on the sidelines, widening its sanction nets, but unable to deter President Vladimir Putin and unwilling to save Ukraine. In a video published this morning local time, Ukraine's Zelenskyy said "we are defending our state alone. Like Thursday, the world's most powerful forces are watching from afar." Follow all the latest on POLITICO's live blog. The bottom line: Neither European capitals nor Washington are ready to counter their greatest threats, which leaves them unwilling to save Ukraine. For EU governments, that threat is the risk Putin poses to its own members; for America, it's Communist China, posing such an all-encompassing global leadership challenge that Washington dare not drop the ball in Asia. In parallel, few governments across the West retain the trust of their people to engage in wars outside of their most important alliances: the legacy of war built on lies in Iraq, and failure in Afghanistan. All this together has sealed Ukraine's immediate fate. EXPECT RAPID ENCIRCLEMENT OF KYIV, AND FIERCE RESISTANCE: While Ukraine recaptured one airport near Kyiv, CNN reported overnight that now Ukraine is losing the battle for the skies over its capital. The ways the fall might happen include the capture of a key airport by unmarked soldiers to allow a larger paratrooper landing. Russia is claiming control this morning of Hostomel airport. But ordinary (and now armed) Ukranians will resist fiercely in hand-to-hand combat. Kyiv is telling Washington they need air power. Will they get it? Very unlikely: No one in or near military command is suggesting the no-fly zone that would be needed to stop the city's fall. Britain's Boris Johnson is still considering whether to send jet fighters. The bottom line: With definitely no boots on the ground, and almost definitely no no-fly zone, American military hawks have joined their European counterparts in becoming flightless birds. When Moscow invades non-NATO Eastern Europe, that country is on its own: During the Cold War that was true of Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Poland in 1981. After the Eastern Bloc collapsed, it was still true in Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014. NATO will convene a virtual summit today, and NATO ambassadors have authorized the Supreme Allied Commander to activate five existing NATO defense plans for NATO's eastern flank from the Baltics to Turkey — but that doesn't help Ukraine. COULD THIS REALLY SPILL INTO NATO TERRITORY? While President Joe Biden is clear that "our forces are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia in Ukraine," he also said Thursday that the U.S. will defend "every inch of NATO territory." There's plenty of chances that could cause him to back that up: — Accidents: Things go wrong in war: an off-course missile, a passenger plane shot down. — Baltics: Putin has easy targets near him: the Baltic countries. And while he may balk at a full-scale invasion, he would certainly like control of the Suwalki corridor to give Moscow a land bridge to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast. — Economy: For now the economic brunt and backlash of sanctions is mostly felt in Russian markets, but while sanctions don't stop shelling, they could drive inflation even higher in the West. And that could trigger a recession. — Cyber: Then there's the cyber warfare factor that most worried the specialists Global Insider has spoken to. There are no borders in cyberspace, and computer viruses can easily get out of control. HOW PUTIN IS PLAYING PROTESTS IN RUSSIA ARE BIG AND VOCAL: Max Seddon has a great thread collecting together the Russian celebrities who are loudly opposing the war: amplifying groups of protesters in 53 cities who are risking arrest through their mobilizations. More than 1,700 have been arrested in the past 24 hours. Going to war with your brothers is a side to Putin that many are shocked to see. CHINA WILL BE ENCOURAGED: Taiwan is not Ukraine, and China still publicly defends the rights of all countries to their "sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity" (Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Munich Security Conference), but the underlying message is clear to Beijing. The West isn't effectively organized in its efforts to defend democratic allies. POLITICO'S WESTERN ANALYSIS: What does Putin really want? We convened a panel of security specialists. Putin was playing Biden all along, by Nahal Toosi. This is a before and after moment for Europe, by Paul Taylor. SANCTIONS STATE OF PLAY Russia's financial system is starting to be cut off today: The U.S. cut the biggest Russian Bank, Sberbank, out of its financial system. The EU and U.K. cut off the VTB, the second-biggest. Both the U.S. and EU are implementing export controls on high-tech parts and individually sanctioning a new set of oligarchs and officials each day. The EU "export ban will hit the oil sector by making it impossible for Russia to upgrade its refineries," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. See a Guardian comparison here between America, EU and British targets. EU united in its half-heartedness: While European leaders rushed to Brussels for an emergency summit and claimed unity, no one in the know in Brussels believes that . The leaders dodged several hard calls: They left a carveout for energy transactions in bank sanctions, and failed to agree on cutting Russia from the SWIFT global payments system that is used by 11,000 banks (a move that had devastating effects against Venezuela and Iran, and which London wants to impose on Russia); the EU also dodged sanctioning Putin himself. Former EU Council President Donald Tusk, who is Polish, reacted with venom this morning : "In this war everything is real: Putin's madness and cruelty, Ukrainian victims, bombs falling on Kyiv. Only your sanctions are pretended. Those EU government's, which blocked tough decisions (Germany, Hungary, Italy) have disgraced themselves." One European NATO ambassador told Global Insider: "EU blockages are not just silly, they're shortsighted and selfish. The new sanction package is strong but falls short of bite. Putin can weather it and aim at post-war appeasement. It is painful to see that instead of leadership the three major EU countries blinked." It's not all about SWIFT: "Strong enough sanctions on Russia's financial sector would be far more powerful and probably have the effect of SWIFT dropping Russian banks anyway," said Nate Sibley, who runs Hudson Institute's counter-kleptocracy initiatives. Bloomberg lays out the pros and cons. WHO SHOULD BE TARGETED NEXT? There's a wide array of options and allies are spreading their bets. The U.K., for example, is targeting people associated with Putin's wealth, among the five additional oligarchs sanctioned Thursday was Kirill Shamalov, Russia's youngest billionaire and Putin's former son-in-law. Australia targeted eight members of his "inner circle" on the country's security council. Canada sanctioned members of the Russian Duma. Sanction the nomenklatura instead of the oligarchs, argues Angus Roxburgh. Free pass for the most powerful: Why aren't sanctions already slapped on the top tier oligarchs and officials? Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich are the leading examples. Americans support more sanctions against Russia — even if it means higher prices.
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