The past few weeks have been a roller coaster of diplomatic activity on Russia’s war against Ukraine, but the situation remains stuck in the same place because of Russia’s Vladimir Putin’s refusal to end the fighting that he started.
Nobody wants the war to end more than Ukrainians, who suffer every day under Russian bombardment, yet they won’t let their compatriots’ sacrifices be for nought. Ukraine’s leadership has shown great flexibility and readiness to agree to a ceasefire. Putin has rejected that, just as he has spurned all efforts to stop the slaughter for which he bears full responsibility.
There should be no talk by U.S. officials about or planning for business opportunities between Russia and the United States as long as Russia continues to bomb and kill Ukrainians, refuses to recognize Ukrainian independence, and behaves like a criminal, murderous regime. How could U.S. officials contemplate doing business with a regime that kidnaps thousands of Ukrainian children, executes prisoners of war, and does not value human life?
Putin started this war – dating back to 2014 when he illegally annexed Crimea and tried to take over Ukraine’s Donbas region and then ramped up in 2022 with his full-scale invasion. He has sought to destroy Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity by:
- Overthrowing Ukraine’s duly elected government.
- Annexing more Ukrainian territory.
- Preventing Ukraine from joining any Euro-Atlantic institutions (not just NATO but the European Union, too).
- Neutering Ukraine’s military.
- Bombing Ukrainians into submission.
- Blocking Ukraine from becoming a successful, democratic alternative to the rotten, corrupt, dictatorial regime he runs in Russia.
Putin will not stop until he achieves these goals – or is stopped on the battlefield. Putin thinks he can outlast Western support for Ukraine. He tries to portray Russian victory as inevitable, when in fact it is anything but.
That is because the Ukrainian people and leadership have heroically blocked Putin from achieving his goals and inflicted tremendous damage on Russian invading and occupying forces, including more than a million casualties on the Russian side.
Ukraine has regained more than 50% of the territory Russia initially occupied and taken out Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. For all the suffering and damage Ukrainians have endured, they will continue to fight whether they receive help from the West or not, because their freedom, land, and lives are at stake.
Ukraine needs and deserves Western military, financial, intelligence, and diplomatic support, even though it has developed a great degree of self-sufficiency in certain weapons systems, especially drones. It needs Western missile defense systems, longer-range missiles, and continued intelligence.
Remember that Ukraine has never asked the West to send its men and women to fight this battle for them.
Ukraine stands between Putin and other parts of Europe. Were it not for Ukraine’s ability to thwart Putin’s ambitions, NATO member states would be at much greater risk of direct war with Russia. Putin’s appetite, after all, only grows with the eating.
Ukraine should not be coerced by the West into surrendering its territory to Russia, nor should it be compelled into giving up its aspirations to join NATO. It will conduct elections when the war ends and martial law, imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion, is lifted.
Russia must not be granted a de facto veto over Ukraine’s interest in joining NATO. It would be unconscionable for the West to pressure Ukraine. That simply would help Putin succeed when he is unable to achieve his goals on the battlefield.
Russia, on the other hand, should face much greater pressure from the West to end the war in the form of tighter sanctions, the seizing of its $300 billion in assets held in Western financial institutions, and sanctions/tariffs on China, the largest importer of Russian energy, the sales from which fund Putin’s war.
All European countries, including Hungary, should end their imports of Russian energy as well. Congress should finally move ahead with legislation imposing tougher sanctions on Russia and other countries complicit in its war crimes.
Recent surveys show strong American support for Ukraine. Close to three-quarters of Republicans who participated in a Harvard/Harris poll, for example, said that they want the United States to continue sending weapons to Ukraine; 86% said that they want to see more sanctions on Russia to force an end to the war.
So, Putin’s rejection of the latest U.S. diplomatic efforts to end the war that he started against Ukraine comes as no surprise. Putin is responsible for the start of the war and the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Ukrainian people, and Putin is the one to blame for its continuation.
Tragically, the war will continue until Putin is stopped, not through Western concessions, but through consistent support for Kyiv and unstinting pressure on Moscow.
