Driving the snakes out of Snake Island

Ireland needed Saint Patrick to rid itself of snakes. The Ukrainians have done it with artillery and missiles.

Hilariously, the Kremlin explained last night's retreat from Snake Island as a humanitarian gesture. "As a symbol of goodwill," claimed the defense ministry this morning, "the Russian Armed Forces completed its mission on Snake Island and withdrew their garrison." For its part, the Ukrainian explained that it had attacked the island and set it on on fire, causing the Russian troops to flee in two speedboats.

Compounding the doublespeak, the Russians went on to say that it wasn't interfering with grain exports from Black Sea ports, and that the Ukrainians were free to ship the stuff as soon as they cleared the water of mines -- which, of course, the Russians have placed there.

Putin is obviously making some progress in occupying eastern Ukrainian, while holding onto his earlier conquests in the south, But while he's winning some battles after his embarrassing beginning, he has already lost the wider war. Finland and Sweden are about to join NATO, adding a huge swatch of land and two competent military forces to the European alliance. Of course Putin reserves the right to respond "tit for tat" if NATO uses the expansion to deploy troops to Russian borders -- which is to say, if Western Europe behaves in the same fashion as he has lately behaved. Thanks to his stupid war, the previously sleepy NATO countries have already decided to boost their forward-deployed troops from 40,000 troops to 300,000, including the first permanent US presence in Eastern Europe.