This week is consequential, CBSN has learned that V.P. could invade Ukraine by week’s end. The pentagon says the President hasn’t made a final decision but that should he choose to, he can move in without little or no warning. That’s part of the reason the State Department is closing the embassy in Kiev and moving diplomats out of harm’s way. We learned today that V.P. flooded the region with thousands of more troops and Russian units in Belarus moved in attack positions along Ukraine’s northern border. And while the Russian buildup points to kind of some military action, President B and British Prime Minister say a window for diplomacy remains open. Invasion fears rattled financial markets and energy experts warned that a war will push gas prices even higher than they are now.

The State Department says it’s temporarily closing the US embassy here in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital and moving operations to the city of Lviv near Polish border as a security measure of the quote “dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces.” In Moscow tonight, perhaps a signal that President Putin is looking for an off ramp from this crisis. Russian Foreign Minister urged him to allow more time for diplomacy in a televised exchange. Yet Russian still moving forward with military drills in Belarus and on the Black Sea. An US official told CBSN some Russian long range artilleries and rocket launchers have been moved into firing positions. Ukraine is now closed to being encircled, US officials say, by roughly a hundred and thirty thousand Russian troops. The absence of panic in Ukraine is nothing short of surreal, its people seemed determined not to be intimidated. Commuters calmly made their way to work this morning, though Kiev’s subway system is also effectively the city’s biggest bomb shelter if there is an attack. It looks like business like usual, but scratch the surface there is worry and sense of being powerless. An US Official said today that once an attack begins, knowledge of what’s happening will dramatically decrease because America will have no people on the ground and no reconnaissance plane in the air.