Ukraine: Time to End the War
It is long past time to bring the brutal war between Russia and Ukraine to an end. Now, just as both countries seem open to serious negotiations, Donald Trump perversely seems intent on giving peace a bad name.
Even as his amateur emissaries—real estate investors Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law—launched separate discussions with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Trump decided to tilt the board for Putin. He lashed out at Zelensky, saying Ukraine needed a new president. For domestic midterms consumption, he announced an “energy ceasefire” that neither combatant had heard of, temporarily approved the purchase of Russian diesel oil, and shelved the intensified sanctions contained in legislation he had signed. He delusionally claimed that “Russia, frankly, had been fine on Ukraine. They haven’t been doing much,” even as Russia’s attacks on Ukraine intensified. Witkoff risibly hailed Putin as a “humanitarian,” while salivating over economic deals that the United States could cut with Russia when the war ends. Trump embraced Putin’s suggestion of a tripartite summit—Putin, Xi, and Trump—to settle the war, although Trump said it should focus on nuclear weapons, not Ukraine.
Delivery of defensive Patriot missiles paid for by the Europeans has been mysteriously held up. And although Trump denied that he was responsible, Ukraine suffered sudden restrictions on its use of Starshield, the Starlink satellite program vital to providing early warning of Russian missile attacks, restrictions that Elon Musk claimed only the White House could order.
Not surprisingly, these actions spurred outrage in Europe and condemnation in the US, even echoed by some Republican senators. They also inevitably triggered the Trump derangement syndrome that muddles liberal analysis. The New York Times editorial page indicted Trump for “helping Mr. Putin wage war,” and called on the West to “continue to punish Mr. Putin, the oligarchs who support him, and Russia’s war-making economy,” ignoring the terrible price Ukrainians are paying. At stake, the Times intoned, is “whether the West can rally to protect democracy and innocent lives,” although the Times carefully noted that in this “defense of democracy,” only Ukraine should put troops and civilians at risk, and Europe should bear most of the cost.
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