That's from Julia Ioffe's excellent analysis of the crisis in Ukraine. Head over to The New Republic to read it. Spoiler alert: She is not optimistic that this will end well.

Neither America nor NATO can stop this. They've shown they won't in Georgia, because nobody wants to start a war with nuclear-armed Russia, and rightly so. So while Washington and Brussels huff and puff about lines and sovereignty and diplomacy, Russia will do what it needs to do and there's not a thing we can do about it.

Russia's next target is eastern Ukraine. Because pessimism conquers all, don't bet that Putin is going to stop once he wrests Crimea from Kiev's orbit. Eastern, Russian-speaking Ukraine — and all its heavy industry — is looking pretty good right now. [The New Republic]

Give the whole thing a read. Ben Frumin

President Trump attacked two members of Congress before 7 a.m. on Thursday, potentially complicating his already contentious relationship with the Senate:

Trump also attacked his longtime enemy, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.):

Republicans hold just a sliver of the margin in the Senate, and their support will be necessary for Trump to pass a budget, infrastructure bill, tax reform, and eventually health care. Jeva Lange

During the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend, Vice News Tonight correspondent Elle Reeve embedded herself with the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other alt-right participants, and her documentary of the melee is pretty intense. On Wednesday night, CNN's Anderson Cooper had Reeve on to talk about her documentary and what she saw, in the light of President Trump's less-than-robust criticism of white supremacists on Tuesday. She said the most striking thing about the "Unite the Right" activities was how well-organized they were.

"Everyone who was there knew exactly what they were signing up for," Reeve said. So, Cooper asked, "when the president says that there were 'good people' at this march, that they were quietly there to protest a removal of the Robert E. Lee statue, that not all of them were neo-Nazis or white supremacists, what do you think? Is that true?" Reeve laughed. "No," she said. "Everyone who was there knew what they were doing. They were shouting 'Jews will not replace us!' It was very well coordinated, they had an order to the chants. Like, there was no mistaking, there was no innocent person wandering up and accidentally getting involved in this. ... They had a set time, they lined up, everyone got in line, they got their torches, we saw them snake all the way through the field. It was very clear that they had planned this."

Cooper asked how Trump's comments are being received by the white nationalists. "They love it," Reeve said. "The president continues to exceed the expectations of white nationalists. One texted me last night, 'My god I love this man. He really has our back.'" They see Trump's condemnation of neo-Nazis and white supremacists as "for the media, so the media will quiet down, but the real statement is he's okay with them, at least in their interpretation," she added. Reeve and Cooper also discussed the radicalized Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans who protect the white nationalists, some of the shocking things the white supremacists told her in the video, their grievances, and how scary it was making the documentary. Watch below. Peter Weber

Instead of Tiki torches, the thousands of marchers who gathered at the University of Virginia on Wednesday night held candles in upside-down cups, passing the flame around like you might see at an Easter vigil.

They chanted "love wins" instead of "Jews will not replace us!"

And they sang, "The Star-Spangled Banner," "God Bless America," "We Shall Overcome," and also "Amazing Grace," a song written by a former slave-ship captain after he came to see that slavery is evil.

Organizers of the event, which also paid respects to the three people who died during the "Unite the Right" melee in Charlottesville on Saturday — anti-racism protester Heather Heyer and Virginia State Police troopers H. Jay Cullen and Berke M.M. Bates — said they spread the word through text message, phone calls, and word of mouth, intentionally keeping it off social media so as not to attract any disruptive groups. Participants called it cathartic. "I have struggled to let go of my anger over what was done to us last weekend," tweeted UVA Dean of Students Allen Grove, "but seeing 5,000 of my fellow citizens tonight sure helped."

The University of Virginia also made it clear which of the two marches, each following the same route, it wanted to claim as its own. Peter Weber

Surprisingly, there may be prominent American leaders who don't hate Nazis as much as you'd expect in 2017. But everybody hates zombies, right? To emphasize how President Trump's comments Tuesday about the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other "alt-right" marchers who descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend might sound to those who unequivocally oppose white supremacy, The Late Show re-enacted Trump's press conference almost verbatim, but placed them in another context.

Stephen Colbert was slightly less subtle in his monologue on Wednesday, starting out by noting he is still reeling from Trump's "kamikaze press conference yesterday, where Donald let Donald be Donald, the consequences and our country be damned, and it was truly one for the ages — specifically, 1939 to 1945." He ran through some of Trump's comments, noted that Trump seemed to be pleased with them even if his staff was not, and compared Trump to a racist grandfather who shouldn't be speaking his mind in public places.

"In the wake of the furor Trump caused by channeling the Führer, the White House was desperate to get Republicans on board the flaming wreckage that was the SS Hinden-tanic by releasing talking points to Congress," Colbert said, indicating he was not impressed with the messaging. "But not every Republican followed the talking points," he said, showing a John Kasich interview and cheering, and then playing the second half. "Kasich is not the only profile in thinking about courage here," he said. "So far, the GOP's actions have spoken way more flaccid than words."

Still, "there was one group that really basked in the radioactive glow of the unshielded core of yesterday's Trump dump," Colbert noted. "Wow, David Duke complimenting your courage — that's like Jeffrey Dahmer complimenting your cooking: He means well, but it's a little upsetting." Watch below. Peter Weber

On Wednesday morning, President Trump announced that he will hold a campaign-style rally in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, next Tuesday, his first trip out West since his inauguration. On Wednesday evening, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton asked him to reconsider. "I am disappointed that President Trump has decided to hold a campaign rally as our nation is still healing from the tragic events in Charlottesville," Stanton wrote. "If President Trump is coming to Phoenix to announce a pardon for former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, then it will be clear that his true intent is to enflame emotions and further divide our nation. It is my hope that more sound judgment prevails and that he delays his visit."

Trump told Fox News earlier this week that he is "seriously considering a pardon" for Arpaio, a supporter and anti-immigration stalwart who lost his bid for re-election as Maricopa County sheriff last year and was recently convicted of criminal contempt; at his scheduled Oct. 5 sentencing hearing, Arpaio, 85, could get up to six months in jail. Stanton said that the Phoenix Convention Center is a public space that anyone can rent, "and that includes the Trump campaign," adding that assuming sound judgment does not prevail, he and the Phoenix police department will be focused on "keeping everyone — those attending the rally, those expressing their First Amendment rights outside and the general public — safe." Peter Weber

It took three weeks for Dana, a lion rescued from a defunct zoo in Aleppo, Syria, to make the journey to her new home in Jordan, and during her first night at the al-Ma'wa reserve, she gave birth to a lion cub named Hajar — Arabic for "the immigrant."

Dana was one of 12 animals, including four other lions, two bears, and two tigers, to leave Syria for Jordan, thanks to the efforts of the animal charity Four Paws. The team had been concerned she might give birth while in the cage she had to travel in; had that happened, Dr. Amir Khalil said, the cub probably would not have survived. The vet thinks Dana waited until Friday, when she arrived in a secure area, to finally have her cub. "She is a mom, she had the instinct," he told ABC News. "It's a miracle."

Not much is known yet about the cub, as it is bonding with Dana and hasn't been examined by Khalil. Its fur is white, which could change, and it is estimated to weigh 3.3 to 4.4 pounds. An ultrasound done in Turkey showed that Dana was carrying two cubs, and a follow-up ultrasound will reveal if she is still expecting, or if the second cub was born at the same time as Hajar and died. Dana and Hajar already have a strong bond, something Khalil is grateful to see. "After the dark," he said, "there is light." Catherine Garcia

It wasn't something you hear on Fox News every day: A host on the conservative-leaning network making comments critical of President Trump.

Following his jaw-dropping press conference Tuesday where he blamed "both sides" for violence at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, which ended in the death of counterprotester Heather Hayer, Kat Timpf, a co-host of The Fox News Specialists, said she was "disgusted" by the whole spectacle. It didn't take long for viewers to react, with many tweeting that Timpf, as well as co-host Eboni K. Williams, needed to be fired. In one case, Timpf told The Associated Press Wednesday, she was told she's a "disgrace to the white race."

Timpf said she's had to stop checking her email, and while the threats are hitting her hard, she won't be silenced by those who object to her opinions. "It doesn't seem like it's too difficult to do the right thing and respond by saying, 'Nazis are bad,'" she said. "I can't believe that my stance is a controversial stance, or something you need to even take a stand on at all these days. It's really upsetting." If she ends up losing the support of some viewers, Timpf told AP, that's fine, because "there's nothing in my head that has me even considering approaching things in any other way than I have approached it." Catherine Garcia