Meanwhile, In Ukraine...

Russian troops continue to mass on the border with Eastern Ukraine as there appears to be no diplomatic solution in sight to Crimea.

U.S. and European security agencies estimate Russia has deployed military and militia units totaling more than 30,000 people along its border with eastern Ukraine, according to U.S. and European sources familiar with official reporting.

The current estimates represent what officials on both sides of the Atlantic describe as a continuing influx of Russian forces along the Ukraine frontier, the sources said.

The 30,000 figure represents a significant increase from a figure of 20,000 Russian troops along the border that was widely reported in U.S. and European media last week.

But U.S. and European security sources noted that these estimates are imprecise. Some estimates put current troop levels as high as 35,000 while others still suggest a level of 25,000, the sources said.

That's not the bad part.  The bad part is we don't know what they are up to, thanks to that sudden NSA blind spot of ours that developed in the last month or so.

U.S. officials said that what Russian President Vladimir Putin actually plans to do with his forces deployed on the Ukraine border is unknown. Some officials say intelligence information available to policymakers regarding what Putin is thinking, and what he is saying to his advisors and military commanders, is fragmentary to non-existent.

But the portents are potentially ominous. "No one's ruling out the possibility of additional Russian military aggression," one U.S. official said.

Crimea is one thing, but Eastern Ukraine is another.  Putin is playing with fire, and we're lacking the intel resources to see where he's going with this insanity.  An actual shooting war in Ukraine is not going to be good for anyone on Earth.