Yes but let's remember why Cuba happened. USA was putting missiles in Turkey. It ended when JFK agreed to remove (after USSR's retreat). I don't see events in Ukraine as worth our involvement. If it's only because people are suffering then welcome to life on Earth. Americans need to wake up to the fact that all life feeds off other life and that the system of survival is a brutal business. I see this as a local issue which Europe once lived with. WWIII is better than living with it again? Not in my book.

@rainmanjr It may be a local issue but it's cause was not local and was partly caused by NATO but I agree that NATO cannot get directly involved. The Russian military has been shown to be pretty inept and it's conventional army would be no match for the USA and Putin is now so unstable that he may resort to nuclear weapons and that could be the end of life on earth as we know it.

@rainmanjr

I didn't know that history of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Turkey. It does bring to mind what I wish would happen here, which is that the US should make clear that NATO membership would be removed from discussion if Russia withdraws. I don't know if it's too late for that, or some variant of that.

@kmaz News tonight that Ukraine and Russia have found some common ground in their discussions. I would think that non membership of NATO and they keep Crimea and the so called autonomous regions in the east of Ukraine would be the absolute minimum Russia would accept to cease fire.

@Moravian

Another possibility, however bizarre it may sound, .... given the loss of freedom and human life that will continue to come from Russia wrecking and occupying Ukraine, is that the entire country could have been, and still could be, evacuated, with the armed forces providing defensive cover rather than trying in vain to keep a vastly larger army at bay without air support.

Again, I realize that sounds like an over the top extreme measure, but the US in its way arguably committed a deadly (for others) move here, which was to encourage Ukraine to think it could join NATO. So I'm just trying to think of solutions that will end the crisis, and without losing millions of lives.

@kmaz I don't think it would be possible to totally remove 40 million people. Possibly over 10% of the population will be become refugees. If a much larger % flee Russia could possibly replace them with Russian citizens. They have previous here, Stalin deliberately starved millions of Ukrainians and filled the empty villages with Russians.

I disagree. Putin must grow population of Russian nations if Western Europe won't keep buying his oil. So he's under a renewable energy/battery threat which is existential to Russia. If Putin can't keep the money coming in then his oligarchs will become angry. In that way it's about him.

@rainmanjr I believe Ukraine is still pretty poor and would do little to add to Russia's account. It would have to have its natural resources exploited. I suspect the war is partly about Putin's legacy, and partly about getting 'assets' to dole out to his oligarchs. Russia's oil would probably enough to keep Russia's people well and happy except most of the money it gets for the oil is getting siphoned off to the crooks. Russia has the capacity for creative industry, but their social/political systems are far too repressive to allow a thriving economy.