I am sad for us and for Ukraine and it's brave people for so many, many reasons. I'd make a formal list, but you have given us a list with so many lessons. That we are shortsighted, that we are notoriously ignorant of the lives, customs, languages, needs and desires of both our enemies and out allies, that we cannot be trusted to keep our word, that our time horizon has been so diminished by television and movie scripts, that we have, as a people, little or nothing of a coherent world view, and above all that our leaders are equally if not more disabled by these things, with the addition of arrogance and a need to appear important. Woe is us. Woe is Ukraine. Please, someone (everyone!) who knows more about this godawful morass than we do, step up to a microphone and make it plain what's going on and what needs to happen to stop the carnage and start the healing!
While reading T. Snyder's solid presentation about negociating for a ceasefire in Putin's war against Ukraine, I thought about Trump's knowledge, character and goals - that says it all.
Hi Fern... I am thinking that we must resist our own despair and negativism. I feel it. I read here from Snyder a persistence. This is what we must do- persist. That is because *they* persist in dragging us down. And they will win if we let them. It's the old forces of darkness against the forces of light. Do we help pull the shades?
But Trump's need for power and approval is greater than anything as he nods to this. And so too are the needs of the people around him, that flock to his dark leadership.
I am not telling anything you do not already know. But us old people have a special task before we leave this Earth: to remind people of what we in our hearts know, as you usually do.
So many are very disappointed in humanity. This is us, humanity. Many carry and spread this feeling, even taking advantage of it. I think Trump does- deeply.
I have started mindfully resisting that feeling I get-- even as it started to be about our younger generation. Some are however in fact amazing and *know*; some are "evolved". Some know this is a fight even though they have not experienced what we have in our lifetime, that people can be rallied for the good, do amazing things.
I admit- it does not look good for the planet at this rate. I accept that. But the fight to survive, for the good, is what it is all about. By the good we mean the best we can do under the reality we have before us.
I am sorry to read all those who despair, who need to ratify their feelings of despair. That is also a reality we have to accept.
Tikkun Olam: repairing the world….Jewish tradition teaches: “You are not obligated to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it” (Pirke Avot 2:21). It is a call to action and a rejection of apathy, even when the task at hand seems overwhelming. Each person must imagine that the world is evenly balanced between good and evil and that his or her actions can determine the destiny of the entire world.
I can't imagine that the world is evenly balanced between good and evil- somehow. But I get it that we have to act against despair- which is a killer and apathy also ( a defense mechanism?).
Sometimes and maybe too often there is an imbalance that is overwhelming. Other times this does not seem so- although there is always some good and evil around. I love the concept of repairing the world, suggesting there is a Good that should prevail. But word "good" apparently does not come from God, the internet tells me, though we strive for it and it just feels better (normally) to be good, to do good... a religious concept drilled into us to the point that it's maybe even genetic by now?
It is not very difficult. Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked and caused much harm. Russia must withdraw at once and repair the harm. Or else WITH TEETH.
Principle 11. Meet with your allies and make sure you are on the same page AND THEN meet with your enemies!!! Also, don't roll out the damn red carpet for them and kiss their ass!!!
I would also add what should be basic: Determine your goals and go in with a plan. It appears to me that the regime goes in pretty much blind and hopes for the best. The Trump regime's preparation for negotiations leaves at a distinct disadvantage when sitting down with tough negotiators like the Russians, Chinese and North Koreans.
Meidas Network was the only to report Trump was zigzagging down that red carpet. They sped up the video so we could see the OBVIOUS! This inability to walk a straight line is a sign of dementia. Listen to Trump "talk", he's INCOHERENT even on his very best day. He speaks in phrases because he CAN'T form sentences. He runs off on a multitude of tangents because he cannot maintain a thought. All of this is OBVIOUS but the American media flat-out REFUSES TO REPORT THE TRUTH but they were ok pouncing on Biden u til he withdrew his nomination. Hypocricy of the highest order! Trump is UNFIT.
All very sensible Tim, but Trump & Co are not very sensible, nor do they understand, and, even worse, have no interest in understanding the real situation. Trump and Witkoff are intellectually incapable of seeing the world in anything other than real estate deals. Witlesskoff must be a strong contender for the worst and most stupid diplomat in US history. The Russians must rub their hands with glee whenever he walks in the room.
I think the main task of the Europeans is not how they handle Putin but how they manage Trump.
Love it, Mark, on those "incapable of seeing the world in anything other than real estate deals."
Timothy Snyder has a great bit here on "emotional deficits," or those areas of life totally opposite real estate, numbers, abstractions, categories.
The place we fill in emotional deficits may be, first, travel. Actually seeing, smelling, talking with, eating and drinking with, touching others in places beyond our own. We can approach these experiences vicariously, too, by reading novels, memoirs, histories, and other writings. Other arts can help, too.
Anyone who's read much of Timothy Snyder knows how much Putin and his eastern Orthodox priests live in abstractions. They demonize the secular West, fantasize about their mysterious, magical Mother Rus. Worse, their abstracted packaging of the secular West (which all authoritarians do resentfully, categorically of "others") primes them to hatreds, to murders, and other, vaster violence.
The orange, stupid Donald and his white supremacist nationalists all do this, too.
Massive, massive emotional deficits U.S. schools produce.
Hi, Phil. One of the places I'm longing to visit, based solely on Serhiy Zhadan's "Sky Above Kharkiv," is Kharkiv. I'm attracted to wonderful oddities, and his descriptions of both the art and food scenes in Kharkiv strike me as just the sort of thing I would love.
I now have several shelves full of of fiction and poetry by Ukrainian writers, as well as nonfiction by, e.g., Oleksandr Mykhed (just finished "The Language of War" and will start "I Will Mix Your Blood With Coal" within the next few days), Vika Amelina's unfinished and posthumously published "Looking at Women Looking at War," and the first two of the Kyiv Mysteries by Andrey Kurkov, "The Silver Bone" (set in 1919 Kyiv) and "The Stolen Heart" (set in 1920s Kyiv). The third in the series, as were the first two, is at this moment being translated by the delightful Boris Dralyuk. There are more, but that's enough for now. Oh, I forgot Serhiy Zhadan's "The Orphanage," which I may save for late in the year.
I'll be in northern California in mid-October, so should be able to find several of these very good, specific suggestions from you -- in Petaluma, Santa Rose, Sebastopol, or San Francisco.
(Otherwise I live far from English language bookstores, in a small town in a river valley in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan.)
They have been a strong ally of Leonard Leo, the guy who put the Injustices 6 on SCOTUS. The Russian Orthodox priests have been funneling money through Leo’s shell companies for years. I encourage you or anyone else to go to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s page or to Youtube and see how many times he has explained his findings. It’s astonishing the brazenness all in the name of “Christianity”!
Yes, Marlene -- have followed most all the segments of "The Scheme."
But there have been many other good books, video, and films, too, tracing the commercial arc of U.S. corporations and the rich quite deliberately gutting democracy ever since the Powell memo of Aug 23, 1971.
He did, but I developed some years ago a nasty but apparently valid response to that: Just what did Tolstoy know about happy families? His life history gives no positive answer to that.
I feel the Europeans need to manage Putin directly as T is completely incapable, unreliable and half-demented. They should just send him jewel-encrusted (fake jewels) swords every week to hang on the crevices left between the gilt monstrosities all over the Oval Office walls and get on without him.
Mark, I submit that both Trump and Putin are problems, but very different problems, for European Union and NATO leaders. I would positively hate to have to deal with either of these maniacs!
If you are directing this to the White House minions who may surround Trump for any type of carrying-on he may do this week with Ukrainians or Russians — or anyone else, to boot — I am afraid your pedagogy, nuance, and experience will be lost on that group of toadies and climbing ignoramuses.
There may be a few left at Foggy Bottom who read you, but I should think most of that ilk will be ushered out the door as soon as possible.
So you are left with a dangerous group who not only do not know what they do not know, but are uninclined to learn much of anything from anyone else. Nor do they care to learn by listening.
The result is a cacophony of confusion and braying.
... and, having read and re-read four of the Professor's works, I deplore the present administration's braying about "MAGA" fallout without giving the consequences of what has been happening the last ten +(minus the middle four) years in our country due consideration.
I cannot bring myself to believe that electing the present U.S. Leader once, let alone TWICE, bodes well for our future, let alone Europe's, NATO's and, most of all, Ukraine, who in our country's yclept self-inflated knowledge ("I alone can fix it") treat that poor country, the victim of over 10 centuries of Russian abuse, like a fatherless stepchild... Shame on us all. And may God shed His light on us - soon. Like yesterday.
If Snyder’s nuance and experience are ignored by those who need to understand, surely that doesn’t mean he is wasting his time trying to educate people?
Let the ignoramuses bray. Lots of us can recognize braying when we hear it, and call attention to it.
News to me was the fact that Ukraine has built substantial physical defensive structures in Donetsk. If Putin takes them over, his next wave of attacks will be made easier and more likely.
If Timothy cannot serve as our US president, can we ask you to serve as our de facto ambassador to Ukraine or our Secretary of State? Your article is a master class on diplomacy.
A foundational document, I hope you give a talk on it that can make the rounds here, before the Trump Betrayal of Ukraine becomes absolute. I will forward to my two Senators, Whitehouse and Reed, though I am sure they have followed you for a very long time.
It’s so appalling that a psychopath was voted in who does not care about freedom or the well being of anyone at alll other than himself. He can’t remember what he said yesterday, he’s scared of anyone with knowledge, intelligence or independent thought. He’s not even an exTV talk show host. He was so bad they had to cut and paste his appearances. How any American could fall for this is just staggering and has alienated me from the nation completely. It seems like a country of spoiled people who think freedom is freedom to hobble, abuse and ignore other people, all while puffed up with arrogance and malice and threatening posture. Americand have no idea at all what living under a dictator means. They are worthy of utter derision. Including the law firms, corporations and others with influence who have collaborated in extraordinary levels of corruption. Watching Ukraine being insulted, betrayed and cheated makes me nauseous. I’m no longer supporting charities in the USA. I’m sending ambulances to Ukraine instead.
Oh my. These stipulations are at once obvious and, I fear, under the Trump regime, utterly unattainable. NATO must play a more active role to make up for the American vacuum. I was so proud of America’s role. Now I’m sitting here crying. I knew Trump could not do the right thing, but it’s all happening all over far too fast. God help us all.
An extraordinary piece of work, Tim, and I know a good deal of thinking (and knowledge and understanding) went into its creation. I can only wish that everyone involved reads your marvelous blueprint for a peace that has a chance of lasting, and avoids making the mistakes that attended the prior Russian guarantees of peace that didn't stop their 2014 invasion.
I am sure that even Trump, as stupid and craven as he is, understands some of these principles. He just chooses to ignore them.
I don't think that Trump has any close confidantes that can get him to change course nor are any Republican senators likely to go him to change course upon pain of removal. Perhaps someone from the Nobel Committee could accompany the EU delegation and explain to Trump that if he follows Prof. Snyder's principles he just might win the Prize. Otherwise, I am afraid we are in for another day of infamy on Monday following the previous one last Friday.
Russia should not get any of Ukraine and should have to give back what they already invaded and stole. Russia is run by thieves, who carved up Russia’s assets for themselves and weren’t satisfied with their spoils. They impoverished Russia and they are to blame for the state it’s in. They won’t stop thieving until they are stopped from thieving.
Thank you for another excellent analysis. As I see it, Russia (Putin) is the aggressor, and the ultimate goal is to destroy Ukraine sovereignty — not simply to steal a few oblasts. The US cannot end the war through “negotiations” or “land swaps”because Putin doesn’t want it to end until all of Ukraine is under Russian control. But the US can and should punish the aggressor — and discourage (dis-incentivize) future Russian aggression. US media are not accurately reporting the political conflict or countering Russian propaganda. And Trump is buying Russia’s propaganda, lauding Putin, blaming Zelenskyy, and spreading lies. I am a “peacenik” — but I will not be fooled in wanting to “end the war” when the moral position must be to “end Russia’s unprovoked aggression.”
I am sad for us and for Ukraine and it's brave people for so many, many reasons. I'd make a formal list, but you have given us a list with so many lessons. That we are shortsighted, that we are notoriously ignorant of the lives, customs, languages, needs and desires of both our enemies and out allies, that we cannot be trusted to keep our word, that our time horizon has been so diminished by television and movie scripts, that we have, as a people, little or nothing of a coherent world view, and above all that our leaders are equally if not more disabled by these things, with the addition of arrogance and a need to appear important. Woe is us. Woe is Ukraine. Please, someone (everyone!) who knows more about this godawful morass than we do, step up to a microphone and make it plain what's going on and what needs to happen to stop the carnage and start the healing!
We can do more as individuals!
1. Take to the streets (I'll be in front of the White House Monday morning. Join me or hold your own demonstration.
2. Make donations to Ukrainian organizations like United24, RAZOM and Come Back Alive.
We are not helpless and can make a difference! Let's go!
We have. We do.
While reading T. Snyder's solid presentation about negociating for a ceasefire in Putin's war against Ukraine, I thought about Trump's knowledge, character and goals - that says it all.
Hi Fern... I am thinking that we must resist our own despair and negativism. I feel it. I read here from Snyder a persistence. This is what we must do- persist. That is because *they* persist in dragging us down. And they will win if we let them. It's the old forces of darkness against the forces of light. Do we help pull the shades?
We all somehow do know the difference- even Trump does. He gave Melania's letter to Putin!! https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-shares-melania-trumps-letter-putin/story?id=124726767
But Trump's need for power and approval is greater than anything as he nods to this. And so too are the needs of the people around him, that flock to his dark leadership.
I am not telling anything you do not already know. But us old people have a special task before we leave this Earth: to remind people of what we in our hearts know, as you usually do.
So many are very disappointed in humanity. This is us, humanity. Many carry and spread this feeling, even taking advantage of it. I think Trump does- deeply.
I have started mindfully resisting that feeling I get-- even as it started to be about our younger generation. Some are however in fact amazing and *know*; some are "evolved". Some know this is a fight even though they have not experienced what we have in our lifetime, that people can be rallied for the good, do amazing things.
I admit- it does not look good for the planet at this rate. I accept that. But the fight to survive, for the good, is what it is all about. By the good we mean the best we can do under the reality we have before us.
I am sorry to read all those who despair, who need to ratify their feelings of despair. That is also a reality we have to accept.
Tikkun Olam: repairing the world….Jewish tradition teaches: “You are not obligated to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it” (Pirke Avot 2:21). It is a call to action and a rejection of apathy, even when the task at hand seems overwhelming. Each person must imagine that the world is evenly balanced between good and evil and that his or her actions can determine the destiny of the entire world.
Credit: Sally Abrams
I can't imagine that the world is evenly balanced between good and evil- somehow. But I get it that we have to act against despair- which is a killer and apathy also ( a defense mechanism?).
Sometimes and maybe too often there is an imbalance that is overwhelming. Other times this does not seem so- although there is always some good and evil around. I love the concept of repairing the world, suggesting there is a Good that should prevail. But word "good" apparently does not come from God, the internet tells me, though we strive for it and it just feels better (normally) to be good, to do good... a religious concept drilled into us to the point that it's maybe even genetic by now?
It is not very difficult. Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked and caused much harm. Russia must withdraw at once and repair the harm. Or else WITH TEETH.
Principle 11. Meet with your allies and make sure you are on the same page AND THEN meet with your enemies!!! Also, don't roll out the damn red carpet for them and kiss their ass!!!
I would also add what should be basic: Determine your goals and go in with a plan. It appears to me that the regime goes in pretty much blind and hopes for the best. The Trump regime's preparation for negotiations leaves at a distinct disadvantage when sitting down with tough negotiators like the Russians, Chinese and North Koreans.
Understatement of the decade!
Meidas Network was the only to report Trump was zigzagging down that red carpet. They sped up the video so we could see the OBVIOUS! This inability to walk a straight line is a sign of dementia. Listen to Trump "talk", he's INCOHERENT even on his very best day. He speaks in phrases because he CAN'T form sentences. He runs off on a multitude of tangents because he cannot maintain a thought. All of this is OBVIOUS but the American media flat-out REFUSES TO REPORT THE TRUTH but they were ok pouncing on Biden u til he withdrew his nomination. Hypocricy of the highest order! Trump is UNFIT.
One word: deliverables!! (we got none)
All very sensible Tim, but Trump & Co are not very sensible, nor do they understand, and, even worse, have no interest in understanding the real situation. Trump and Witkoff are intellectually incapable of seeing the world in anything other than real estate deals. Witlesskoff must be a strong contender for the worst and most stupid diplomat in US history. The Russians must rub their hands with glee whenever he walks in the room.
I think the main task of the Europeans is not how they handle Putin but how they manage Trump.
Love it, Mark, on those "incapable of seeing the world in anything other than real estate deals."
Timothy Snyder has a great bit here on "emotional deficits," or those areas of life totally opposite real estate, numbers, abstractions, categories.
The place we fill in emotional deficits may be, first, travel. Actually seeing, smelling, talking with, eating and drinking with, touching others in places beyond our own. We can approach these experiences vicariously, too, by reading novels, memoirs, histories, and other writings. Other arts can help, too.
Anyone who's read much of Timothy Snyder knows how much Putin and his eastern Orthodox priests live in abstractions. They demonize the secular West, fantasize about their mysterious, magical Mother Rus. Worse, their abstracted packaging of the secular West (which all authoritarians do resentfully, categorically of "others") primes them to hatreds, to murders, and other, vaster violence.
The orange, stupid Donald and his white supremacist nationalists all do this, too.
Massive, massive emotional deficits U.S. schools produce.
"We can approach these experiences vicariously, too, by reading novels, memoirs, histories, and other writings."
One place to start is https://chytomo.com/en/.
Thank you, J, for all these wonderful tips.
Hi, Phil. One of the places I'm longing to visit, based solely on Serhiy Zhadan's "Sky Above Kharkiv," is Kharkiv. I'm attracted to wonderful oddities, and his descriptions of both the art and food scenes in Kharkiv strike me as just the sort of thing I would love.
I now have several shelves full of of fiction and poetry by Ukrainian writers, as well as nonfiction by, e.g., Oleksandr Mykhed (just finished "The Language of War" and will start "I Will Mix Your Blood With Coal" within the next few days), Vika Amelina's unfinished and posthumously published "Looking at Women Looking at War," and the first two of the Kyiv Mysteries by Andrey Kurkov, "The Silver Bone" (set in 1919 Kyiv) and "The Stolen Heart" (set in 1920s Kyiv). The third in the series, as were the first two, is at this moment being translated by the delightful Boris Dralyuk. There are more, but that's enough for now. Oh, I forgot Serhiy Zhadan's "The Orphanage," which I may save for late in the year.
Thank you, Rose.
I'll be in northern California in mid-October, so should be able to find several of these very good, specific suggestions from you -- in Petaluma, Santa Rose, Sebastopol, or San Francisco.
(Otherwise I live far from English language bookstores, in a small town in a river valley in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan.)
They have been a strong ally of Leonard Leo, the guy who put the Injustices 6 on SCOTUS. The Russian Orthodox priests have been funneling money through Leo’s shell companies for years. I encourage you or anyone else to go to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s page or to Youtube and see how many times he has explained his findings. It’s astonishing the brazenness all in the name of “Christianity”!
Yes, Marlene -- have followed most all the segments of "The Scheme."
But there have been many other good books, video, and films, too, tracing the commercial arc of U.S. corporations and the rich quite deliberately gutting democracy ever since the Powell memo of Aug 23, 1971.
Families produce emotional deficits.
Didn't Tolstoy open some novel with some remark about happy, unhappy families?
He did, but I developed some years ago a nasty but apparently valid response to that: Just what did Tolstoy know about happy families? His life history gives no positive answer to that.
Yes, true, Judith.
But you might like also to read Giorgio Bassani's "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis."
The memory of the film haunts me.
Agree! Let's get trump on a plane to Ukraine
I feel the Europeans need to manage Putin directly as T is completely incapable, unreliable and half-demented. They should just send him jewel-encrusted (fake jewels) swords every week to hang on the crevices left between the gilt monstrosities all over the Oval Office walls and get on without him.
Mark, I submit that both Trump and Putin are problems, but very different problems, for European Union and NATO leaders. I would positively hate to have to deal with either of these maniacs!
If you are directing this to the White House minions who may surround Trump for any type of carrying-on he may do this week with Ukrainians or Russians — or anyone else, to boot — I am afraid your pedagogy, nuance, and experience will be lost on that group of toadies and climbing ignoramuses.
There may be a few left at Foggy Bottom who read you, but I should think most of that ilk will be ushered out the door as soon as possible.
So you are left with a dangerous group who not only do not know what they do not know, but are uninclined to learn much of anything from anyone else. Nor do they care to learn by listening.
The result is a cacophony of confusion and braying.
... and, having read and re-read four of the Professor's works, I deplore the present administration's braying about "MAGA" fallout without giving the consequences of what has been happening the last ten +(minus the middle four) years in our country due consideration.
I cannot bring myself to believe that electing the present U.S. Leader once, let alone TWICE, bodes well for our future, let alone Europe's, NATO's and, most of all, Ukraine, who in our country's yclept self-inflated knowledge ("I alone can fix it") treat that poor country, the victim of over 10 centuries of Russian abuse, like a fatherless stepchild... Shame on us all. And may God shed His light on us - soon. Like yesterday.
Thank you, Professor Snyder.
The present regime bodes well for no one.
If Snyder’s nuance and experience are ignored by those who need to understand, surely that doesn’t mean he is wasting his time trying to educate people?
Let the ignoramuses bray. Lots of us can recognize braying when we hear it, and call attention to it.
News to me was the fact that Ukraine has built substantial physical defensive structures in Donetsk. If Putin takes them over, his next wave of attacks will be made easier and more likely.
It is the 21st century Maginot Line.
Thank you. I hope that this will be published in our news media and abroad.
What a wonderful post. Thank you Professor.
If Timothy cannot serve as our US president, can we ask you to serve as our de facto ambassador to Ukraine or our Secretary of State? Your article is a master class on diplomacy.
A foundational document, I hope you give a talk on it that can make the rounds here, before the Trump Betrayal of Ukraine becomes absolute. I will forward to my two Senators, Whitehouse and Reed, though I am sure they have followed you for a very long time.
Whitehouse is one of my favorite people. He never backs away or backs down which is what Prof. Snyder has been repeating to all of us for years.
It’s so appalling that a psychopath was voted in who does not care about freedom or the well being of anyone at alll other than himself. He can’t remember what he said yesterday, he’s scared of anyone with knowledge, intelligence or independent thought. He’s not even an exTV talk show host. He was so bad they had to cut and paste his appearances. How any American could fall for this is just staggering and has alienated me from the nation completely. It seems like a country of spoiled people who think freedom is freedom to hobble, abuse and ignore other people, all while puffed up with arrogance and malice and threatening posture. Americand have no idea at all what living under a dictator means. They are worthy of utter derision. Including the law firms, corporations and others with influence who have collaborated in extraordinary levels of corruption. Watching Ukraine being insulted, betrayed and cheated makes me nauseous. I’m no longer supporting charities in the USA. I’m sending ambulances to Ukraine instead.
Thank you. You bring clarity to the situation.
Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should all read this twice.
Oh my. These stipulations are at once obvious and, I fear, under the Trump regime, utterly unattainable. NATO must play a more active role to make up for the American vacuum. I was so proud of America’s role. Now I’m sitting here crying. I knew Trump could not do the right thing, but it’s all happening all over far too fast. God help us all.
That's what authoritarianism is all about. Flood the zone to drown the protests...
An extraordinary piece of work, Tim, and I know a good deal of thinking (and knowledge and understanding) went into its creation. I can only wish that everyone involved reads your marvelous blueprint for a peace that has a chance of lasting, and avoids making the mistakes that attended the prior Russian guarantees of peace that didn't stop their 2014 invasion.
I am sure that even Trump, as stupid and craven as he is, understands some of these principles. He just chooses to ignore them.
I don't think that Trump has any close confidantes that can get him to change course nor are any Republican senators likely to go him to change course upon pain of removal. Perhaps someone from the Nobel Committee could accompany the EU delegation and explain to Trump that if he follows Prof. Snyder's principles he just might win the Prize. Otherwise, I am afraid we are in for another day of infamy on Monday following the previous one last Friday.
Mr Hendrix:
A solid, practical suggestion!
Now to write a letter to the Nobel committee with a copy of Dr Snyder's essay attached.
\Vince S
More on this Nobel angle in The Atlantic:https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/08/russia-ukraine-trump-putin-zelensky/683950/?gift=AI3FsZe6LcAXompyYqFkUZlyxNxeNvG23bVDvm_qzuc&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Russia should not get any of Ukraine and should have to give back what they already invaded and stole. Russia is run by thieves, who carved up Russia’s assets for themselves and weren’t satisfied with their spoils. They impoverished Russia and they are to blame for the state it’s in. They won’t stop thieving until they are stopped from thieving.
Yes
Thank you for another excellent analysis. As I see it, Russia (Putin) is the aggressor, and the ultimate goal is to destroy Ukraine sovereignty — not simply to steal a few oblasts. The US cannot end the war through “negotiations” or “land swaps”because Putin doesn’t want it to end until all of Ukraine is under Russian control. But the US can and should punish the aggressor — and discourage (dis-incentivize) future Russian aggression. US media are not accurately reporting the political conflict or countering Russian propaganda. And Trump is buying Russia’s propaganda, lauding Putin, blaming Zelenskyy, and spreading lies. I am a “peacenik” — but I will not be fooled in wanting to “end the war” when the moral position must be to “end Russia’s unprovoked aggression.”