UKRAINE – WORSE – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  The crisis continues to deepen as the chickens in Barack Hussein Obama's policy of weakness and retreat come home to roost.  From CNN: 

(CNN) -- Russia tightened its grip around Ukraine's eastern Crimean region Monday, drawing condemnation from Western nations and heightening fears of war.

Moscow's G8 partners have condemned its military buildup in the country, demanding that it withdraw. Ukraine's new leaders accused Moscow of declaring war, and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that blood could be spilled amid growing instability in the neighboring nation.

Ukraine's shaky new government has mobilized troops and called up military reservists as officials say signs of Russian military intervention in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula -- an autonomous region of eastern Ukraine with strong loyalty to Russia -- are clear.

Speaking at a visit to Switzerland on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who spoke with his Chinese counterpart Monday about the crisis, accused Ukraine's new authorities -- in place since President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted last week -- of attacking minorities and violating human rights.

"The opposition ... has fulfilled nothing," Russian state news agency ITAR Tass quoted Lavrov as saying. "Illegal weapons have not been handed in, administrative buildings and streets in Kiev have not been fully freed, and radicals continue to control the capital."

A senior U.S. administration official told CNN on Sunday that Russian forces "have complete operational control of the Crimean Peninsula." The official said the U.S. estimates there are 6,000 Russian ground and naval forces in the region.

COMMENT:  The foreign minister of the UK said over the weekend that this is the biggest crisis facing Europe in this century.  I'm glad he didn't say it was global warming.

Ukraine is a really big deal.  It is Russia, two weeks after hosting the Olympics, using military force on its own borders to create, in effect, an old Soviet-style satellite.  And part of the deal is a weak, vacillating American president who is cutting American defense in the face of the rising Russian threat.

Remember when Mitt Romney said during the 2012 campaign that Russia would be our greatest geopolitical opponent?  He was laughed it.

Remember when Sarah Palin said during the 2008 campaign that Putin's use of military force in Georgia could be a prelude to an invasion of Ukraine?  She was ridiculed.

We see it so often in history – the people who are laughed at often turn out to be right.

March 3,  2014