What began as a straightforward U.S. policy of arming the Ukrainians has expanded into a dangerous and rapid escalation. //

Now, instead of simply helping Ukraine stave off invasion and conquest, U.S. policy seems to have shifted into something else entirely: the permanent weakening of Russia at any cost. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said so explicitly after a clandestine visit to Ukraine with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last month. //

All of this amounts to a major policy shift on the part of the United States, writes Stevenson: “Whereas once the primary Western objective was to defend against the invasion, it has become the permanent strategic attrition of Russia.” This shift, he adds, has “coincided with the abandonment of diplomatic efforts.”

So what possible strategic gain does bleeding Russia in Ukraine hold for the United States? The risks of pursuing such a policy are immense, including the possibility of nuclear war between the world’s top two nuclear powers. If the Biden administration has some overarching goal in mind, it has not bothered to tell the American people. Instead, we are trundling along the road to war as if every decision we make is simply a reaction to Russian aggression.

But in fact, the war itself has shifted dramatically since late February, and conditions now are arguably more favorable to a cease-fire and a negotiated political settlement than they were even a month ago.

Despite machinations attempting to hide the full truth of how Spygate conspiracies to entrap Donald Trump were spun, lots will come out into the open.

Finland formally declared its intent to join NATO Sunday as the historically neutral nation seeks to bolster its security amid Russia’s ongoing incursion into Ukraine.

The nation of roughly 5 million people shares a long border with Russia and the move is likely to escalate already searing regional tensions. //

Finland has been independent since 1917 and entered neutral status after a 1948 treaty with the Soviet Union.

The Nordic nation has a more than 800-mile border with Russia.

Captured Russian soldiers have accused their commanders of killing their own wounded troops rather than recovering them from the battlefield and sending them for treatment.

In a harrowing account to Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Zolkin, the young intelligence soldiers described how one lieutenant colonel asked a wounded comrade if he could walk, the Mirror reported.

When the badly injured soldier replied that he could not, the high-ranking officer reportedly shot him – as well as several others — dead.

Another soldier told Zolkin, who has reported about Russian prisoners for Open Media Ukraine, that officers have “finished off their wounded.”

When the journalist asked him to elaborate, the soldier answered: “Just like that … a wounded soldier is lying on the ground, and a battalion commander shoots him dead from a gun,” according to the outlet.

“It was a young man, he was wounded,” he added. “He was on the ground. He was asked if he could walk, so he was shot dead with a gun.”