I suspect that Ms. Harris isn’t on the Designated Survivor list.
She’s the VP, it’s automatic, just like LBJ after JK.
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LBJ wasn’t an absolute moron though. Harris makes Liz Truss look like Einstein.
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Hard to say now what may be considered an ‘escalation’ of hostilities in Putin’s opinion but here is some help for Ukraine
Let us hope these brave young lives are not wasted
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He had better hair.
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Duncan Goodhew has better hair than Liz Truss.
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Dust bunnies have better hair than Liz Truss.
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I have seen on an Australian forum daily posts by a man, I think in his 50s, who lives in Ukraine and works as a volunteer delivering supplies to anyone who needs them and that includes the military, which means he is, even in a country where everyone is at risk, very much so.
I found it a bit trying at first but I can now see why he does it, he expresses contempt in his own small way for the invaders by never using the word russian without the lower case ‘r’ and never without being suffixed with the word ‘fascists’.
Every day he lists the losses of the Russians since the start of the war, numbers each day since the start and if he can, reports the civilian losses.
But occasionally, while appreciating the support around the world, his frustration at some things which can’t be changed without the risk of a world war, show through in bitter comments.
Today he writes at the end of his report about incoming cruise missiles:
The Polish Air Force even flew fighter jets whose pilots watched russian fascist missiles kill Ukrainian civilians. In the “good” world we live in! Having the means to shoot down missiles, watching your neighbours being killed is a good characteristic of modern democracy!
Moving if not realistic.
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I think Ukrain has SFA chance of prevailing. The US has marched the charismatic idiot Zelenskyy up the hill, and now the EU is meant to pick up the pieces. Will we never learn 
Trusting the promises of aid from the west is like grasping a fractured stick to lever yourself out of a hole - the stick splinters and cuts your hand as it does so.
So what are you suggesting John, capitulation?
But we know it won’t end there because Putin will soon want some more ‘Russian’ parts of Ukraine, and then bits of the Baltic States. Basically he’s nibbling away at European Europe like some demented beaver.
I despair about these European promises of assistance - when will they arrive, but I despair even more about the clown car that the US Senate has become.
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Total agreement with all 3 of you. Apart from @John_Scully, on 2 points, I don’t think Ukraine is definitely doomed or that Zelensky is an idiot, he was thrust unexpectedly into the role just at the right moment and I doubt they could have found anyone better. He is plagued by his allies though, and can do nothing more about that than continue to bluster and plead. Otherwise all is lost for that sad nation.
BTW I have a happy happenstance here. Years ago, as a member of the East Midlands squad in the inter-regional UK petanque championships, we were for a few years hosted by Pontins in Weston Super Mare. All participants were given a free Pontins umbrella. I still have it, it is a good and very useful umbrella but it is also in the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian national flag. 
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A slightly less gloomy prognosis, though taking the long view
It is Hungary that is stopping tge EU frm sequestrating Russian assets held in the EU and giving them to Ukraine.
Slovakia and Slovenia on the same uktra right leaning path too.
Like that typo it seems better than ‘ultra’ in this context!
I think it’s more down to more important EU countries (and the UK) to urgently get supplies directly get supplies to Ukraine - if they just give them money, where are they going to buy the necessary kit?
John has consistently suggested ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia as a price for temporary cessation of overt armed conflict.
Precisely, the cessation would only be temporary.
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Like all of us, so will Putin and Zelenski be temporary.
Well I’ve been muttering on about a peace deal since it started Mark. With my vast knowledge of military strategy () what I would have thought sensible was… Not poking Russia with a stick over NATO membership for Ukraine (thank you very much Bush the younger). Then not being surprised when he took his Crimean naval base back. That was the time to bolster Ukraine’s defences, but of course Ukraine was corrupt and unreliable then (I’m not sure what’s changed).
When Putin’s blitzkrieg was rebuffed, and well done Ukraine, I would have thought smart western generals would have realised that, on balance, Ukraine hadn’t a snowballs chance of “winning” a war with Russia. As after Stalingrad, Russia will just throw everything into the fight, and its everything is more than Ukraine’s everything, even with US and EU material support. So, rather than encourage the Ukrainian dream of recovering all territory they should have got them to dig in and focus on defence. I still think they should do that.
For what it’s worth, I don’t totally buy this expansionist view of Putin’s intentions. I don’t remember that being the narrative before the Ukraine war started. I think it’s arisen as part of a “if he gets us, you’ll be next” story. The only thing that has made me reconsider that, and I need to read more on it, is Donald Tusk’s views. I think Tusk is a good man, unlike the idiot running Germany.
Guilty AM 
but a permanent cessation based on much improved defence in Ukraine, maybe even some sort of Nato affiliation.
Edit: This trading territory for peace doesn’t seem a bad idea to me, once you use the peace to build defences that prevent another chunk being nobbled. This territorial integrity is a bit of a
fallacy really, isn’t it? Stuff moves around all the time, the treaty of Turin, Alsace–Lorraine, Northern Ireland, the West bank.
I don’t think Ukraine is doomed either David, but I do think their pie in the sky thinking of reclaiming their territory is, and how many lives have been thrown away on that? You’re right, idiot is the wrong word for Zelensky, Pied Piper might be a better term. I believe a more pragmatic leader could have secured peace by now and be on the road to longterm security for Ukraine. Zelensky is a showman and he’s totally underestimated the shift in foreign support that was inevitable as other World events developed. He should have “banked” when the going was good (well, not as bad as it had been).