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"Land for peace" sounds nice, but the president of Russia isn't fighting for land - he's fighting to destroy Ukraine [View all]
The Atlantic - Putin Isn’t Fighting for Land in Ukraine(Gift article)
And Biden has mere weeks to give the Ukrainians the resources they need to fight.
By Anne Applebaum
November 12, 2024, 8:45 AM ET
Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian targets have increased in frequency in the week since the U.S. election, killing civilians and destroying another dam. Russian troops continued to make incremental gains toward the city of Pokrovsk. The Russian army is preparing a new offensive, this time using North Korean troops. Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his election but implied that he would have discussions only if the U.S. initiates talks, drops its sanctions, and refuses to offer any further support for Ukraine—accepting, in other words, a Russian victory. Meanwhile, Russian state television welcomed news of the election by gleefully showing nude photographs of Melania Trump on the country’s most-watched channel.
How will the new U.S. administration respond? What should the outgoing administration do?
In one sense, nothing will change. For nearly three years, many, many people, from the right to the left, in Europe and in America, have called for negotiations to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration repeatedly probed the possibility of negotiations. The German government endlessly proposed negotiations. Now a new team will arrive in Washington, and it will be demanding negotiations too.
The new team will immediately run into the same dilemma that everyone else has encountered: “Land for peace” sounds nice, but the president of Russia isn’t fighting for land. Putin is fighting not to conquer Pokrovsk but to destroy Ukraine as a nation. He wants to show his own people that Ukraine’s democratic aspirations are hopeless. He wants to prove that a whole host of international laws and norms, including the United Nations Charter and the Geneva conventions, no longer matter. His goal is not to have peace but to build concentration camps, torture civilians, kidnap 20,000 Ukrainian children, and get away with it—which, so far, he has.
/snip
And Biden has mere weeks to give the Ukrainians the resources they need to fight.
By Anne Applebaum
November 12, 2024, 8:45 AM ET
Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian targets have increased in frequency in the week since the U.S. election, killing civilians and destroying another dam. Russian troops continued to make incremental gains toward the city of Pokrovsk. The Russian army is preparing a new offensive, this time using North Korean troops. Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his election but implied that he would have discussions only if the U.S. initiates talks, drops its sanctions, and refuses to offer any further support for Ukraine—accepting, in other words, a Russian victory. Meanwhile, Russian state television welcomed news of the election by gleefully showing nude photographs of Melania Trump on the country’s most-watched channel.
How will the new U.S. administration respond? What should the outgoing administration do?
In one sense, nothing will change. For nearly three years, many, many people, from the right to the left, in Europe and in America, have called for negotiations to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration repeatedly probed the possibility of negotiations. The German government endlessly proposed negotiations. Now a new team will arrive in Washington, and it will be demanding negotiations too.
The new team will immediately run into the same dilemma that everyone else has encountered: “Land for peace” sounds nice, but the president of Russia isn’t fighting for land. Putin is fighting not to conquer Pokrovsk but to destroy Ukraine as a nation. He wants to show his own people that Ukraine’s democratic aspirations are hopeless. He wants to prove that a whole host of international laws and norms, including the United Nations Charter and the Geneva conventions, no longer matter. His goal is not to have peace but to build concentration camps, torture civilians, kidnap 20,000 Ukrainian children, and get away with it—which, so far, he has.
/snip
Anne Applebaum
@anneapplebaum.bsky.social
6h
1. “Land for peace” sounds nice, but the president of Russia isn’t fighting for land. Putin is fighting to destroy Ukraine as a nation. When the next U.S. president takes office he will therefore face the same choices : help Putin win, or help him lose.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/11/biden-trump-ukraine/680632/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3zffT0eLFQltr_IEJNr1tAo&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share (gift article)
Anne Applebaum
@anneapplebaum.bsky.social
2. And until then - Biden should send all of the allocated weapons, let the Ukrainians hit targets in Russia with American and European missiles, and above all pressure the Europeans, finally, to release the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets. No time to lose.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/11/biden-trump-ukraine/680632/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK3zffT0eLFQltr_IEJNr1tAo&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share (gift article)
November 12, 2024 at 12:02 PM
https://bsky.app/profile/anneapplebaum.bsky.social/post/3larcqrt7i22z
8 replies
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