All Russia Needs to Do Is Go Home
Mr. Putin, the president of Russia, the man who has proclaimed that my country shouldn't exist — that it's a historical mistake, to be fixed by Russian soldiers — was welcomed effusively to Alaska by the president of the United States. Mr. Putin exited his plane and diplomatic isolation and walked a red carpet like an honored guest.
His smile was triumphant. Was it confidence that he was going to get away with everything he's done? Or was it the anticipation of getting what he wanted: a subjugated Ukraine and a weakened trans-Atlantic alliance? Perhaps it was both.
Americans may have cringed, but for Ukrainians, watching Mr. Putin smirk and laugh was revolting.
The meeting between Mr. Putin and President Trump on Friday was a stark reminder of a simple truth: that the real barrier, the only real barrier, between Mr. Trump and peace in Ukraine (and his coveted Nobel Prize) is Mr. Putin. Russia could end the war in Ukraine at any moment by stopping its attacks and withdrawing its forces. By simply going home. Mr. Putin could end it with a phone call.
Mr. Putin — and sometimes, Mr. Trump — have tried to frame Ukraine as the obstacle to peace. But let's think about how Ukraine could end this war on terms that Mr. Putin would accept: by giving him everything. By relinquishing territory that tens of thousands have died defending, forgoing the prospect of ever joining NATO or the European Union, agreeing not to maintain a military strong enough to defend itself and installing a puppet government pliant to Mr. Putin. By agreeing, in effect, to cease to exist.
To a Ukrainian — and surely to most people — the idea of handing anything, never mind everything, to an invader that has brought death and destruction to a peaceful country, seems exactly backward.
A recent Gallup poll showed that 69 percent of Ukrainians want the war to end in a negotiation, and soon. That majority, up from 22 percent in 2022, the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion, has been widely interpreted as showing that Ukrainians are now willing to compromise. But it's more complicated than that. Other polls that have more precisely parsed the question of ending the war — Do Ukrainians want to cede territories to Russia to end the war? — have shown a majority still saying 'no.'
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