*Goldman Sachs became the first major Wall Street bank to close its operations in Russia.
* According to Bloomberg Economics, Russia’s GDP will drop about 9 percent this year.
* “Western policymakers must consider the circumstances that Russia needs in order to confidently deescalate this situation. This is an exquisitely delicate moment. Among Ukraine’s Western supporters, the temptation toward triumphalism will be difficult to reject, but cooler heads must prevail.”–Brad Slager, RedState.
* Timing always matters: The only Western leader who Vladimir Putin respected and took seriously was Angela Merkel, the former German chancellor who speaks Russian.
* “Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine spells bad news for his regime. … As the war drags on, the danger to Putin’s reign will come chiefly from three quarters: the oligarchs, the military and those whom we call ‘ordinary Russians.’”–Leon Aron, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “Yeltsin.”