A bullied peace will not bring a just, lasting or prosperous peace to Ukraine - or the world

Caught between bullies, Ukrainians have good reason to fear and good cause to feel double-crossed

Ukraine is about to be thrown under the bus once again.

It is a nation now caught between two bullies, president Donald Trump and his pal and autocratic idol, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Each has delusional views of history and each lies about current events on an Orwellian scale. Neither has any respect for international order. Neither honors the rule of law nor the norms and laws of human decency.

Start with Trump, who in the last week blamed Ukraine for starting the now three-year old war and is holding peace talks with Russia without Ukraine or European representatives at the table.

Could he really have forgotten those pictures of Russian tanks and troops pouring into northern Ukraine in the first days of the war, an incursion stopped only by ad hoc Ukrainian militias willing to die for their freedom?

Has he forgotten about the atrocities in Bucha, where Russian troops pillaged and slaughtered and raped civilians in the early days of the war?

Has our president forgotten that the International Criminal Court has issued a war crimes arrest warrant for Putin on allegations that Russia has forcibly abducted Ukrainian children? That Russia has indiscriminately fired missiles at civilian targets, such as schools and hospitals, and that it blew up a dam and flooded hundreds of square miles of Ukrainian territory — all in violation of the Geneva Convention?

I assume the president, as ignorant as he is about history in general, hasn’t forgotten these things. As with all things Trump, his denials and exaggerations are part of his transactional MO. He’s in love with deal making, or rather he’s egotistically enamored of bullying people into deals.

“ Russia cannot be an empire or major power without Ukraine and the riches and buffer to invasion that it offers. So Russian lust for this land continues.”

Trump clearly is trying to force Kyiv to accept a peace it doesn’t like — ceding territory in exchange for a cessation of hostilities but without any robust security guarantees, such as NATO membership. With that, Trump knows he’s giving away his best bargaining chip. He is signaling that he really does not value Ukrainian independence and friendship in a volatile part of the world

His latest proposal smacks of bullying: I’m referring to the deal he offered for Zelensky to sign away nearly half of his country’s rare earth minerals in compensation for U.S. military aid. It’s a despicable ask, akin to the Coast Guard seizing the houses of drowning people it rescues from the surf. Ukraine will need that wealth to rebuild its future.

Foreign policy should, of course, serve U.S. interests. However, enlightened diplomacy and foreign policy should promote mutual interests, prosperity, and international stability, as the Marshall Plan did for the reconstruction of war-torn Europe following WW II. A bad peace sows the seeds for further conflict. The Treaty of Versailles comes to mind. It brutally suppressed Germany following World War I, helping give rise to Hitler.

Without strong security protections for Ukraine, Putin will certainly not honor any peace treaty. He has lamented the collapse of the old Soviet Union as the loss of “historical Russia.” Starting with the seizure of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine last decade, his strategy has been to claw back Ukraine bit by bit. He didn’t launch this war on February 24, 2022, hoping to take just another sliver of the nation. He seems willing to settle for that, but just for now.

Putin insists, as Soviet and Russian propaganda have asserted for centuries, that there is no such thing as a separate Ukrainian ethnic or national identity distinct from Russia, contrary to abundant historical evidence. Russian and Soviet autocrats have spent centuries trying to wipe them out.

Ukrainians remember the brutality of such efforts: The Russian and Soviet armies and police suppressed, imprisoned and massacred Ukrainian Cossack communities for centuries. Stalin’s brutal collectivization of Ukrainian peasants in the 1930s claimed millions of deaths through starvation. Through long periods of Russian domination, the Ukrainian language, printing, and schools were banned. Russians have long condescendingly referred to Ukrainians as “little Russians.”

History teaches us that Russia won’t keep its envious intentions toward Ukraine at bay.

Ukraine has the world’s richest farmland, abundant mineral resources and a key geopolitical position in Eastern Europe. By waging war against Ukraine now, for example, Putin wants to gain a global monopoly of lithium deposits, which are abundant in eastern Ukraine. Little wonder that the fighting in that region now is so intense.

Ukraine’s natural bounty is the cause of its tragic history, and there’s no reason to believe that Putin no longer covets it. He’s playing Trump for the ignorant fool that he is.

History teaches us that Russia won’t keep its envious intentions toward Ukraine at bay. The government of Czar Nicholas II helped start World War I as an excuse to annex western Ukraine, which then was part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. It has been said that Russia cannot be an empire or major power without Ukraine and the riches and buffer to invasion that it offers. So Russian lust for this land continues, and that’s why Putin’s policy toward it can best be described as aggressive paranoia.

I will add that the U.S. undertook an obligation to help protect Ukraine when it agreed to give up its share of Soviet-era nuclear weapons in a 1994 treaty, also signed by Russia. Ukrainians have ample cause to feel double crossed and abandoned.

A paper treaty without ironclad security guarantees will not assure Ukraine of lasting peace. Ukrainians and the rest of Europe should reject the kind of treaty that Moscow and Trump will likely try to impose on them. Ukrainians have proven themselves brave and resourceful, but they can only fight a larger opponent for so long. They have earned our continued support.

I could go on, but you get the point: Why would Ukrainians trust Russia or Putin for a nanosecond? Forcing Ukrainians into a bum and dangerous deal — as Trump is aiming to do, is shortsighted, unfair and ultimately not in America’s or the global community’s best interests.