Anyone who doubts that Russia is making aggressive moves, here's some more evidence. Undersea cables and sensors off the coast of Norway designed to detect the movements of submarines have been tampered with, the cables leading from the sensors to their monitoring stations suspiciously cut. And now a Russian surveillance vessel has been spotted sweeping the ocean off the Irish coast, performing zigzag patterns that indicate it's making sonar sweeps looking for something underwater.

And all this in advance of Russian naval exercises which are set to take place in Irish fishing grounds, much to the dismay and anger of the Irish fishing industry. Firing torpedoes and explosives in this area could throw off fish migrations for a year or more.

Russia is clearly preparing for the escalation of the Ukraine crisis, and trying to intimidate Europe with this show of naval force- along with most likely trying to cripple the detection apparatus that would warn NATO of Russian sub movements into the Atlantic. Russia is preparing for war.