By Rajan Menon
Wall Street Journal correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov’s superb, just-published book on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Our Enemies Will Vanish, contains an illuminating discussion of what exactly happened in the talks that Russia and Ukraine held soon after the war began on February 24, 2022. It has long been asserted, notably by those who believe that Russia’s war was defensive in nature and indeed forced on it by NATO expansion, that a golden opportunity to end the invasion was missed during those discussions—by Ukraine and because of Western pressure on Kyiv to reject any deal with Moscow. Trofimov debunks this theory, as I do here. While we reach the same conclusion, our pathway to it and the evidence we use are not identical.
This piece was originally published in The National Interest on January 17, 2024. Read more HERE.