Kerry to Talk With Russia Tomorrow. Putin Sends Tanks Into Ukraine Today.

Russia is making no effort to
conceal its invasive war in Ukraine anymore. Secretary of State
John Kerry will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
tomorrow to discuss the situation.

A Kremlin source
tells reporters that the two will have an unofficial “sideline”
meeting in Beijing at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit
tomorrow. The two have met nearly a dozen times this year, but
tensions between the U.S. and Russia have only escalated, as has
the bloody, brutal war against Ukraine.

Kerry, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, this week

called for more economic sanctions against Russia for
supporting sham elections in Ukraine’s war-torn east.

President Barack Obama is also set to have an
unofficial meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the
same summit, as well as at the G20 summit in Brisbane soon
thereafter.

Is this going to be too little, too late?

Russian tanks and ballistic-equipped units are reportedly
already crossing into Ukraine.
From Reuters:

Thursday’s cross-border incursion, if confirmed, is a
significant escalation of a conflict that has killed more than
4,000 people since the separatists rose up in mid-April and would
call into question Russia’s commitment to a two-month-old ceasefire
deal… .

“Supplies of military equipment and enemy fighters from the
Russian Federation are continuing,” [Ukrainian] military spokesman
Andriy Lysenko told a briefing in Kiev, describing a column that
included 16 big artillery guns and 30 trucks carrying troops and
ammunition as well as 32 tanks.

Putin was just
declared the world’s most powerful person by Forbes.
Obama came in second place.

In spite of much admiration,
even from Fox News hosts, for his strongman exterior, Putin may
have a less coherent plan than he appears. One exiled oligarch who
used to be a close aide to the Kremlin Gremlin tells
Time this week that the autocrat is just winging it.
“Putin is not someone who sets strategic plans; he lives
today.”

And, his land-grab is costly. Russia’s economy is tanking to
recession levels, partially due to American and European Union
sanctions. Today, against the dollar Russia’s currency is worth

41 percent less than it was on January 1. Russians wealthy and
educated enough to flee
are doing so.

Read Reason‘s
coverage of the Cold War-esque conflict between the Obama and
Putin administrations. Check out this funny Russian propaganda in
which
Putin spanks Obama.