President Donald Trump deserves immense credit for prioritizing diplomacy in pursuit of a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine War. After three and a half years of madness and mayhem in Ukraine, and beneath a volley of overwrought accusations of “Appeasement!” from Democrats, the media, and parts of Europe, Trump has met with both sides of the conflict to discern their positions and try to bring them together to end the killing.
The substantive issues are admittedly tough. The Russians are dug in on territorial concessions and the end of NATO expansion, while the Ukrainians are dug in on security guarantees. Not surprisingly, after three years of brutal conflict, Kyiv wants outside powers to commit to going to war for it if the Russians should invade again. Rightly, Trump has declined repeatedly to commit U.S. forces to fight and die for Ukraine.
That leaves things at loggerheads: If Ukraine will not quit fighting without security guarantees, and the United States—under Joe Biden as well as President Trump—doesn’t want to provide them, who will? The natural answer should be Europe. With an economy roughly the same size as the U.S. economy, five times Russia’s population, geographic proximity to Ukraine, and already more combined military spending than Russia, surely Europe should step up.
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Events on Ukraine-Russia
