(Column by Cliff Smith in the Deseret News, May 10)
Last week, President Donald Trump became concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “tapping him along” and didn’t seem to be listening to his overtures to negotiate an end to the war. Shortly thereafter, the administration quietly green-lit $50 million in military aid to Ukraine that Congress had previously authorized, the first time this has been done in Trump’s administration.
This is a significant turnaround. For months, the Trump administration seemed to be operating under the presumption that it could flatter, bribe or cajole Putin into ending the war. This was never going to work. As historian Daniel Pipes has observed, “Wars usually end when failure causes one side to despair, when that side has abandoned its war aims and accepted defeat, and when that defeat has exhausted the will to fight.” Putin has not yet reached that point. Resultantly, Russia is not fighting a war of limited goals, but of annihilation.
Germany needed to be told twice, over the course of two World Wars, to change its ways. Russia, defeated once in the Cold War, also requires a second defeat.
Visiting the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, was horrific and enlightening. It is not on the front lines, but it faces daily attacks on civilian infrastructure, including a big-box home improvement store, leading to 19 deaths. More recently, Russia hit a military hospital in Kharkiv, killing two.
Meanwhile, attacks on Kyiv surged last week, following attacks the previous week which killed 12. These attacks mirrored those I experienced while recently visiting Ukraine, several of which took place hours after Trump’s phone call with Putin last month. The city of Sumy also recently saw 36 killed and 119 wounded in an attack on churchgoers on Palm Sunday….. [The full column is at this link.]
