Closing the Ring was the title Winston Churchill gave to his epic account of the Allies’ success in encircling and tightening the noose on Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. That set the stage for the decisive invasions in Normandy and the East that liberated half of Europe, and for decades enslaved the rest under Soviet communist tyranny.

The folks that did that enslaving are back. Former KGB officer Vladimir Putin insists that the Soviet Union’s fall was “the greatest catastrophe of the 20th Century.” And he has been determined to get even against the western powers, led by Ronald Reagan’s United States, ever since.

Today, Putin is closing the ring on Ukraine – now a part of the Free World liberated from his Evil Empire. Should we fail to  deter his incipient invasion there, the noose this time will be tightened on us.

This is Frank Gaffney.