It's the Little Victories

🇮🇪 In a surprise turn of events, the Russian government has backed down from a plan to conduct military exercises next week in international waters off Ireland’s coast in response to protests from local fishing groups and the Irish government.

• "I'm shocked, really," the head of an Irish fishing organization told CNN shortly after the news broke. "I didn't think that little old us... would have an impact on international diplomacy."
• According to the US military, Russia and its proxies are attempting to create discord and confusion far from Ukraine as a distraction tactic. Last week, a Russian surveillance aircraft flew by hundreds of US soldiers stationed in Syria, and two Russian warships are currently closing in on an American aircraft carrier conducting exercises in the Red Sea.
• The US and its European allies accused Moscow of trying to destabilize Ukraine at a UN Security Council meeting yesterday, which Russian officials vehemently denied.
• Moscow has deployed over 100,000 troops to locations surrounding Ukraine on three sides, including the southern peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 under similar circumstances.
• The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is nearing completion of a bipartisan bill that would implement “the mother of all sanctions” targeting major Russian banks and its citizens’ savings and pensions, among other things, if Moscow should invade Ukraine.