International opprobrium at Russia's intrusion into normal lives in Ukraine, continues, beyond just on the increase, to overwhelming scorn about how the Russian military persists, as well as concern this can all escalate because Mr. Putin dismisses scorn and contempt heaped upon him, and doubles-down.

That's like a typical gambler, and if Putin feels 'his' back is to the wall, well so far he seems like incapable of admitting a mistake, and recognizing the extent to which people view him as the 'devil', and Zelensky as the 'hero' in all this. It is a reason why Putin may be off-the-rails so much that he has hired (rumored in the U.K. press) a South African 'hit squad' of mercenaries to assassinate all the leaders of Ukraine. As I mentioned Sunday night, I hope a SEAL Team or a similar group of covert Special Forces (or retired operatives) are protecting the top leaders of Ukraine. They deserve honors and all assistance possible. With the carpet-bombing or similar today, Putin should be prosecuted as a war-criminal, his horrid actions are entirely inhumane.

Putin doesn't grasp that all he has done is unify NATO, increased resolve both of Ukrainians, Europeans and even his own people, to oppose this insanity. If he were to eliminate Zelensky, it would not be like how he sidelined Novalny in Russia or killed his predecessor outside the Kremlin years earlier. More likely, at this point, it would enhance the crisis. Putin double-down is like Grozny, as he leveled that capital city in Chechnya and didn't care about human life at all.

All this matters, as the S&P and other Western markets tried to stabilize after initial sell-offs, then realized that progress wasn't being made, as Russia was promising a cease-fire as long as 'talks' on the Belarus border persisted, while he actually was carpet-bombing (essentially, as cluster munitions were used) Kharkiv, the 2nd largest city in Ukraine).

I spoke briefly with a friend at U.S. Embassy Budapest, as I promised earlier in the day I would, regarding pressing Hungary's rather nationalistic Orban to reverse his policy of denying transit of lethal weapons to help fight in Ukraine. It is my impression they believe President Orban is coming around 'better' and already is supporting all EU sanctions against Russia as of late today.

Now I want to hear President Biden give a balanced but unyielding speech at the SOTU Tuesday evening, with backbone that I suspect is already seen. So I say that because we are sending weaponry directly to the border transit into Ukraine, which in a sense could be viewed by Putin as an 'act of war'. One of the things Putin hasn't calculated (among others) is that the border he needed to seal (and can't so far) is the border not to Russia or Belarus, but to Poland. Poland, Moldova (which has mixed loyalties but take refugees), and Hungary, are the primary rail and highway routes into Ukraine, with roads into Slovakia.

The other risk is that Belarus formally attacks Ukraine (they're already a larger part of the scheme as I suspected before this all started), as that puts tension on the Belarus-Polish border. More important: Ukraine, already a member of the Schengen Free-Travel Zone in Europe, will now apply for EU membership which seems a no-brainer given that they will hate Russia for a generation. I do hear the calls for no-fly zones, interdiction of the Russian convoys and so on. Almost all of that is a path that isn't acceptable, although the language of war (between us and Russia) is out there, and the risk of 'accidentally wider' war exists. Say one of our allies decides on their own to honorably launch fighter jets against the Russian convoys? One can speculate about ramifications.

At this point there's no reversing damage Putin already did for Russia's future as well as suffering in Ukraine, but the threats and bravado need to be tamed just a bit, as enough official pressure and even from oligarchs opposing Putin (as their yachts are being kicked out of Fort Lauderdale or the French Riviera) which is a message that will reach the Kremlin. For now: 'calm' is rationed.

In-sum: 

Heightened conflict risk is central to market instability at the moment. Some say volatility can be your friend, well, if you're nibbling only during the purges, and being fairly calm during the surges. Some small stocks held well, even when the DJIA was pummeled both early Monday and mid-afternoon.

While Ukraine (and what happens to tame Putin if that's even conceivable) is at the core of all this now, inflation remains a focus by the market as well. Not to mention potential spillover from the sanctions imposed on Russia. Inflation will be discussed by the President tomorrow (whether he blames it on the war or not), but not much they can do beyond what they probably won't. That sure would be 'not' opening the SPR again, but opening the pipeline and enhanced incentives for drilling and secondary-oil recovery, contrary to prior policies. All that could be proposed as 'temporary wartime' necessities, but even if there's lots of verbal backbone supporting Kyiv, I fear domestic politics restrains oil policies being modified along with emphasis on 'energy independence'.

Notice sanctions on 'Energy' remain 'on the table', as oil is strong (WTI about 96/bbl in the April front-month), and while I do not understand why the USA is buying oil 'at all' from Russia, I do hope for more restoration of policies that in recent years made us energy independent. The total oil and gas reserves that are discovered or known in the USA are tremendous.

I do understand the political and global need for clean energy and so on, with a wartime situation changing the focus, temporarily, on how to manage all this intelligently. One country that learned that was Germany, which might want to revisit shutting-down their remaining nuclear reactor. By the way guess which countries in Europe have the highest proportion of power from nuclear? Well, it's France and Ukraine.