In the first weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine we saw what appeared to be almost universal global condemnation of Russia’s actions. There was that lopsided UN vote condemning the action in which only four other nations, all pariahs or under de facto Russian occupation, took Russia’s side. But over time, a somewhat different story has emerged. Russia has very, very few backers. But there’s a big chunk of the world, likely the majority of the world’s population, living in countries where the governments basically do not want to take sides.

Oklahoma has completely tossed the “weeks” component of the abortion debate.

A bill that would make it illegal to perform an abortion in Oklahoma quietly passed the state House today by a 70-14 vote. The same Republican-backed bill passed the Oklahoma Senate last year, according to the Washington Post, meaning the bill is now headed to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt’s desk.

If passed, it will become the most restrictive abortion ban in the country.

We have mentioned to you a few times what you almost certainly remembered: that President Trump’s first impeachment was over Ukraine and that Trump’s disgraced 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort’s work was in Ukraine for the Russia-aligned former President of Ukraine. But there’s more to it than that. If we step back we can see a thread stretching back at least a decade, weaving from one crisis to the next until this moment. We start in the uprising against Viktor Yanukovych, the so-called Maidan Revolution, an event which was triggered by Yanukovych’s decision to move away from integration with the European Union. Vladimir Putin has always blamed Yanukovych’s ouster from power on the U.S. And this was actually the context for an incident which people in the U.S. foreign policy and national security world later saw as a harbinger of what was to come.