As Russia send more troops (perhaps 1,000 now, with another 20,000 at the border) and resources into Ukraine to destabilize that former Soviet-bloc nation and perhaps grab some more territory for Vladimir Putin, the European Union is standing firm. On their heels, that is. “Despite tough rhetoric decrying Russia’s increasing military involvement in Ukraine, European Union leaders on Sunday stopped short of imposing new sanctions against Moscow right away,” reports the Associated Press. “Instead, the 28-nation bloc’s heads of state and government tasked their executive body to "urgently” prepare tougher economic sanctions that could be adopted within a week.“ Either sanctions need to be so painful that aggression is no longer worth the cost for Putin, or the West is going to have to weigh other solutions.

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