HMM: Putin’s ‘thugs for hire’ militia with orders to kill Zelensky: Shadowy Wagner mercenaries who have been flown in from Africa with 23-strong hit list including Ukraine’s president and the Klitschko brothers. “Sending the Wagner Group into Ukraine would fit in with its use by the Russian state elsewhere in the world. It has previously been deployed to Africa, where it has carried out black ops operations that the Kremlin wants done while avoiding direct responsibility.”

Whatever is actually going on in and around Ukraine, this bit has held up pretty well, even though it’s from a piece where I explained why I didn’t think Putin would pull the trigger: “Sending in the Russian Army risks too much, including perhaps showing for all the world to see his military’s real limitations.”

Deployments and initial operations certainly made it look like Putin thought he could get a quick and relatively easy victory. A week into this thing, and the one clear thing is that he didn’t get anything like that.