Subject: Statist Insanity Continues: Putin puts nuclear forces on high alert Sun Feb 27, 2022 7:08 pm
KHARKIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said Ukraine and Russia would conduct the first diplomatic talks since the Kremlin-launched invasion, with delegations from both countries meeting at the Ukrainian border with Belarus. The two countries would meet near the Pripyat River “without preconditions,” Zelensky’s office said in a Telegram message.
But tensions continued to escalate, with Russian President Vladimir Putin stating Sunday that he had put his nuclear deterrence forces into high alert, attributing the move to “aggressive statements” from the West against Russia. The White House called the order an example of “manufacturing threats that don’t exist.”
The European Union, meanwhile, announced it will shut down airspace to Russian planes and finance weapons purchases to Ukraine as several nations, including the United States, vow to block the Kremlin’s access to its sizable foreign currency reserves in the West and to cut off some Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system. Those sanctions, The Washington Post reports, followed an emotional call from Zelensky, in which he pleaded for help.