some people were living in a kind of suspended disbelief that it wouldn't happen, that vladimir putin wouldn't go all the way, that he would go deterred, but i think starting yesterday and the day before when we saw a dramatic increase in the fire from the russian-backed separatists, many of the troops that i spoke to thought that russia was preparing the ground, that it was softening its targets. i think at this early stage we are still seeing that. there was not a massive shock-and-awe campaign like some u.s. officials anticipated. there was a devastating cyberattack. there haven't been the beach assaults that some people had been speculating. so it seems at this stage that the russian military is still probing. it is knocking out communications. it is knocking out the military's ability to defend the country and launch a counterattack potentially. but the soldiers do believe that this is still an early phase and