Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

The Omicron wave is crashing across Mexico, with a public response perhaps greater than at any point in the pandemic.

Our correspondent takes stock of the situation in a country that essentially never shut down.

And the kerfuffle around Boris Johnson and his alleged boozy lockdown parties got our columnist thinking about work drinks.

There are benefits and risks beyond what might happen to the photocopier.

We ask how employers should think about a drink.

First up, though,

Russian troops have been parked on the Ukrainian border for weeks.

As more of them pile in, families of both American and Russian diplomatic staff are being pulled out of Ukraine.

It's a crescendo of tensions.

Yesterday, America put 8,500 troops on heightened alert, ready to deploy.

Last night, President Joe Biden projected a sense of unity among NATO countries.

I had a very, very, very good meeting, totally unanimity with all the European leaders.

Today, the leaders of France and Germany will meet to examine possible sanctions on Russia.

Tomorrow, negotiators from both will meet with Russian and Ukrainian counterparts to keep the

drip-drip of diplomatic efforts going.

Elsewhere, though, rhetoric is hardening.

Last night, Belarus's president, Alexander Lukashenko,

said he would send a whole contingent of the army to the Ukrainian border.

It's getting more and more difficult to guess where all of this is going.

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