“The fight is here.  I need ammunition, not a ride.”—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, February 22, 2022, when he refused an opportunity to evacuate Kyiv in the face of a massive Russian attack on his country.

Three years ago, I broke down and took one further step into the universe of superfluous, high-tech 21^st century crap and purchased an Apple Watch.  Alongside a plethora of ridiculous functions I’ll never use was one that actually seemed practical.  You could set the watch to an additional time zone.  Glance at the local time, and you could also see the time at another location in the world.

I set it to Eastern European Standard time—the time zone for Ukraine. 

Russia had just launched the largest European invasion in 80 years.  Everyone predicted the capital Kyiv, and ultimately the entire country, would quickly be crushed.

I’d look at the watch, note the time in the Ukraine, and wonder.  How many missile attacks had occurred during the night (when it was 10PM in the Midwest, and 6AM in Kyiv)?  How many homes had been bombed?  How many children had been killed?   How many were freezing in the winter?

Three years later, and I still haven’t changed the setting.

Despite overwhelming odds, the widely expected collapse of Ukraine hasn’t occurred.  Instead, Ukraine has held out against everything the Russians have thrown at them.  Beyond an initial surge during the war’s opening months, and despite emptying out their prisons, enlisting the criminal Wagner paramilitary group, co-opting North Koreans and Syrians, and franticly seeking out weapons from such places as Iran, the Russians have made little progress, other than causing pain and misery.

In village after captured village, independent media have verified reports of rape, torture, and murder of civilians.  At least 10,000 Ukrainian children have been stolen and shipped to Russia.  Hospitals, schools, and apartments have been deliberately bombed.

Not that any of this was new.  Russia used many of these same techniques when they intervened in the Syrian civil war, and propped up dictator Bashar Al-Assad.  It worked for a few years, but Assad eventually had to flee the country and is currently cooling his heels in—you guessed it—Russia.  

It certainly wasn’t the first time Russia had illegally attacked a sovereign nation.  In 2014, it invaded eastern Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula.  Earlier, Putin’s Russia attacked the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.  The invasion was universally condemned by democracies throughout the world.

Nobody really did much.  Then came February, 2022.  A wholesale, massive invasion of a sovereign nation.  This was a redline.  The world had seen enough.

But none of that matters now, according to the current American President.

Plenty of good words have been wasted trying to make excuses for what Putin has done.  Yes, Ukraine was seeking admission to NATO.  Yes, Ukrainian citizens rose up and overthrew a Russia-supporting/Eurosceptic regime that likely came to power through rigged elections, and instead installed a westward-leaning government.  But as a sovereign nation, that was within their rights.

The truth is much more basic.  Putin longs for a return to a Soviet-era empire.  As an up-and-coming KGB officer (remember them?), a 33-year-old Putin was assigned to Dresden, East Germany.  When the Iron Curtain fell, a frantic Putin had to talk down a mob ready to attack the city’s Soviet Ministry.  He called for backup, but nobody came.  It was then, Putin is reputed to have said, that I realized we no longer had a country.   

Putin would later claim that the downfall of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century.  To overlook the excesses of the Soviet dictatorship, the economic impact of communism, the planned starvation of at least 5 million citizens, and the deaths of 27 million others in the second world war (15% of its population), and instead focus on what amounted to a political realignment is shocking.  But apparently that’s Putin.

Let that sink in for a moment.

In addition to Russia, fourteen other current sovereign nations made up the Soviet Union.  All left the alliance.  None seem interested in coming back in.  One of those countries was Ukraine.

Putin’s excuse for military action is usually a mixture of fractured historical half-truths and contemporary lies.  Russian speakers are under threat.  Ethnic Russians are being attacked.  And of course, these lands were originally Russian.

Lebensraum, anyone?

The Russian dictator has also been ruthless to his own people.  Political opponents and journalists have been murdered.  A Russian-supplied BUK missile killed hundreds of passengers on a commercial airline.  A British citizen died when she picked up a container of nerve gas supplied by the Russian FSB which was intended for a dissident.

To date, Putin has offered no acknowledgement of any of these atrocities, much less an apology.  

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Georgia has been accompanied by growing threats against the rest of the world.  The Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia have been threatened.  Sweden and Finland, two countries long famous for their neutrality, have beefed up their defense spending and joined NATO, vastly expanding the organization’s border with Russia.  If Putin thought his invasion would intimidate NATO, he was dead wrong.

But the strength of any alliance is derived from a willingness on the part of all partners to support one another.  And currently, one NATO member only seems willing to support the enemy.

Like billions of people around the world, I watched in absolute disgust as president trump labelled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator, later denied he had done so, then refused to acknowledge that Putin was indeed a dictator. 

I was nauseated when trump claimed Ukraine had “started it.”  It’s the comment I’d expect from a self-centered spoiled third grader.

I was appalled (but not particularly surprised) when trump lied through his teeth and claimed that the U.S. had spent $350 billion on support for Ukraine.  The actual figure is less than $120 billion.

I was enraged when trump tried to exploit the war into a mineral grab for a much wealthier nation.

And I can only shake my head as trump continues to make excuse after excuse after excuse for Putin

In a high stakes meeting at the White House, trump and j.d. (“Junior Dick”) vance alternatively berated, ridiculed and insulted Zelenskyy when he insisted on post-war security beyond “I believe what Putin says.”  In doing so, trump not only knifed Ukraine in the back, but also everything America stands for.

Those who shake their heads over any American support for Ukraine, insisting that they just want peace, are delusional.  This was how Hitler ended up with the Sudetenland, and set the stage for World War II.

Those who talk about the invasion as “an endless war” are being ridiculous.  After only three years, Russia is depleting its military hardware, losing its morale, and tanking its economy.  Their casualties have been massive and despite scrambling for allies, they’re running out of soldiers. 

And all of this despite not one American soldier (or other NATO soldiers) fighting in the war.  Yes, Ukraine has received military support, but most of that has been money that stayed in its home countries (including the U.S.) when arms were purchased.  The actual frontline battles have been fought solely by Ukrainians defending their nation.

As one former diplomat said, “after three years, we finally have Putin where we want him.  And trump is trying to let him off the hook.”  

Efforts to compare NATO support for Ukraine to U.S. involvement in Iraq, Viet Nam, and Afghanistan are absurd.  Right or wrong, good or bad, America sent troops into those countries for years (call it an invasion, if you like) and never enjoyed the full support of the people.  $2.3 trillion was spent in Afghanistan alone, before an idiotic, haphazard trump-sponsored “deal” with the Taliban was further bungled by his successor. 

The Russian invasion, on the other hand, has galvanized the people of the world in a show of support for Ukraine.  With military assistance, Ukraine has fought the Russians and North Koreans to what essentially is a draw.  At least for the time being.

Do we all want peace?  Of course we do.  But we also want a secure future for the children of the world.  Dropping support for Ukraine, while providing no assurances of security other than “trusting” the words of a documented liar, will bring neither peace nor security.  But I suppose it might bring a trump Resort to the Black Sea.

Today’s meeting at the White House was perhaps the most disgusting display of strategic ineptitude in the history of the American Presidency.  What trump calls peace amounts to a virtual surrender on the part of Ukraine.  And if that happens, Putin will be back with a vengeance.

The requirements for a just peace are so basic as to be scarcely negotiable.  Immediate ceasefire.  Withdrawal of forces to February 2022 borders, on the part of both Russian troops in Ukraine and Ukrainian forces in Kursk (Crimea and pre-2022 Russian land grabs are a separate issue.  Yes, they were blatantly illegal, but their adjudication must wait for another day).  A NATO enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine.  Security assurances for Ukraine, with peacekeepers from both NATO and the UN.

NATO membership for Ukraine?  One compromise could be no formal membership for a 5-year period, with revisiting the idea at that time.  Who knows?  By that time, Ukraine may not even care to join.  Or Russia might not have a paranoid leader secretly despised by most of his own people.  About anything is possible. 

But one thing is certain.  A U.S.-led capitulation to Putin would be a disaster for the world. 

I never dreamed I would one day see my country join Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Nicaragua, and others in denying the reality of a Russian invasion.  I never thought I would see an American President kiss up to a dictator.

I never imagined that an American president would so gleefully and haphazardly discard the mantle of “leader of the free world,” and not care one way or the other.

But here we are.  For the sake of our children and our children’s children, indeed the children of the world, I hope we can come to our senses.