The only thing in the United States that is worse than our politicians is our press. A couple of things.

During Putin's visit to Alaska there was a fly over consisting of our 5th gen fighters and B-2 bombers. Personally, I thing that was a message given the timing and aircraft chosen.

In the entire time this has been going on, no one has talked about European troops in Ukraine or US airpower being a backstop for them. Both of those are now publicly in the mix.

The Trump team has made much political hay of the Biden Team's botching of Afghanistan...they know Ukraine going under on their watch would be a catastrophic historical black eye that would forever be theirs. They also know it says a lot about the deterrence effectiveness of the west which has implications for China/Taiwan.

I think we are in a completely new political phase of the conflict and none of us are all that well informed as to what is actually going on.