See more of our coverage in your search results.
Earlier this month, a Russian missile slammed into a housing complex in Pryluky, a Ukrainian city of no strategic value, far from the eastern front lines. Thirty apartments were destroyed. Twenty-two people were killed. Five were children.
Three of those children were 1 year old.
There is no “both sides” in Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Vladimir Putin started this war; Volodymyr Zelensky is simply fighting for the survival of his people. Ukraine targets troops and drone-supply warehouses. Russia aims at civilians. Ukraine strikes oil refineries that fuel Putin’s army and fund his invasion. Russia hits power plants in an effort to freeze women and children.
History will judge harshly an American administration that enables this horror.
Yet that’s exactly what President Trump is doing by shelving the sanctions against Russia pushed by Lindsey Graham, and passed in his honor after his death.
The United States now aids the war machine killing 1-year-old children.
There’s no logical reason for doing this. Analysts say the waiver and diesel deal will do little to lower fuel costs. If it’s meant as a token of goodwill to Putin to push a peace deal, history has shown that concessions only embolden him.
We understand that Trump wants the war to end, but pressure on Putin, not cash, is the only way to do so. The Russian dictator pushes the narrative that Ukraine’s defeat is inevitable. He’s been saying that for nearly 5 years. His army has barely moved. This summer, Ukraine’s Operation Vivaldi reclaimed 107 square miles. More than 450,000 Russian troops have died because of a madman’s folly.
So instead, Putin murders civilians, in hope of breaking Ukraine’s spirit. Will lifting sanctions make him stop? He’ll just use the money to buy more drones. The killing will go on and on and on.
And what does Putin offer our peace envoys? Mystical economic deals in exchange for handing over huge swaths of fortified Ukraine. All while he stabs us in the back by supplying Iran with arms. Ukraine is desperate for peace, but it can never give Russia the exact lands it couldn’t take by force. And Zelensky is not “difficult” for rejecting this abject surrender. He’s making the only choice he can.
Some foreign policy thinkers on the right believe that Russia is our natural ally. That we need them on our side in a global competition against China. But that ignores Putin’s philosophy, which he has stated over and over again. He believes the end of the Soviet Union was a historic tragedy, and that his dictatorship should retake its empire — from the Baltics to Eastern Europe. He hates Democracy. He hates the West. Putin is not our friend. He never will be our friend. Our parents and grandparents stood up to Russian aggression during the Cold War. Why won’t we?
By standing up for Kyiv, we send a message to China that we will support our allies and not capitulate to bullies. It weakens a geopolitical ally. It forces Europe to step up, which Trump has rightfully encouraged.
Supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do morally, ethically, strategically and militarily. Mr. President, do the right thing.