[Update, 12:30 PM: Putin is now expressing possible openness to the idea of a ceasefire, if arms shipments to Ukraine are cut off, despite a Putin aide’s earlier dismissal of the idea of a ceasefire, See this link: https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2025/03/13/new-putin-offers-cautious-support-for-trump-cease-fire-in-ukraine-n3800724]
“As U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff enters talks with Russian officials in Moscow on a Trump administration proposal Ukraine has already accepted for a 30-day ceasefire, President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, rejected the idea,” reports NPR:
Ushakov dismissed a 30-day ceasefire as a mere “breather” for Ukrainian troops, emphasizing Moscow’s preference for substantive peace talks.
Ushakov reiterated Russia’s demands: Ukraine must recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and four southeastern regions, withdraw troops from lands claimed by Russia and pledge never to join NATO. He said he “hopes [the United States] knows our position and wants to believe that they will take it into account as we work together going forward.”
Moscow also seeks limits on Ukraine’s military, protections for Russian speakers and elections to replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Meanwhile, Russian forces have reclaimed most of the territory lost in last summer’s Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.
On March 11, America resumed military aid to Ukraine after ceasefire talks occurred in Saudi Arabia. President Trump, calling for a ceasefire, warned Russia of financial sanctions if it refuses.
If Russia would settle for controlling the areas of Ukraine it controls, and not seize the rest of the Ukraine, that might open the door to peace. Ukraine probably should cede at least part of the area controlled by Russia — the Crimea region, which is populated mostly by Russians and Crimean Tatars, not Ukrainians.
But as Ukraine’s President has noted, Russia has repeatedly violated ceasefires in the past, between 2014 and 2022. “Last month, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky handed a document to Mr Trump’s Ukraine envoy detailing what he said were the 25 ceasefires Russia has violated since the start of its aggression in 2014.” Some of these violations did occur, notes The Independent.
So for Russia to seek limits on Ukraine’s military is unreasonable, because Russia’s own history of aggression and violating ceasefires makes it unreasonable for Ukraine to give up its military strength and become a sitting duck.
For a smaller country invaded by a bigger country, a peace deal can require swallowing unfair provisions. After World War II, to reach a peace deal with Russia, which had invaded it, Finland ceded some of its territories, imprisoned its war-time president and prime ministers to appease the Russians, and paid reparations to Russia. Russia may have accepted this deal, rather than totally conquering Finland, partly to avoid antagonizing the United States, which had supplied much of the supplies used by Russia’s Red Army during World War II.
But it is unclear whether Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is willing to settle even for a deal slanted in his favor that would let him keep the parts of Ukraine that he has seized. Even if Ukraine agrees to that, Russia might just invade later and seize the rest of Ukraine. Ukraine needs some sort of security guarantee, which the Trump administration has so far failed to provide. Trump hasn’t given Russia a strong incentive not to invade Ukraine again later.
An unfair deal is only worth swallowing if the country that obtains it doesn’t demand even more later on.
The U.S. has a moral obligation to help Ukraine, under the Budapest Memorandum signed by America. In December 1994, at a ceremony in Budapest, Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal “in return for security guarantees from the United States, the UK, France, China and Russia,” reports the BBC. “A third of the USSR’s nuclear stockpile was located on Ukrainian soil.” “The pledges on security assurances that [we have given to Ukraine]…underscore our commitment to [its] independence, the sovereignty and the territorial integrity,” said President Bill Clinton while he was in Budapest.
Now, Ukraine needs aid to fight off a brutal, unprovoked Russian invasion, an invasion that would never have occurred if Ukraine had kept its nukes. “Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. Now it’s asking why,” the BBC notes.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. correctly sent aid to Ukraine, as it was supposed to do, under the security assurances it provided Ukraine in the 1994 Budapest agreement.
Ignoring that solemn pledge would be a mistake that would undermine America’s credibility and encourage aggression against our allies by Russia and China. The reason Russia doesn’t attack our smaller NATO allies — like Finland and the Baltic nations — is because we have a mutual defense treaty with them, as part of NATO. But that deterrent only exists because Russia expects us to live up to those treaty obligations.
Russia will be less likely to think we will live up to those treaty obligations — and more likely to invade the Baltic nations or Finland — if we Americans don’t live up to the assurances we made to Ukraine in 1994, to protect Ukraine’s independence and its territorial integrity.
The only reason China doesn’t attack and seize Taiwan (which America is reliant upon for semiconductors) is because we have made security assurances to Taiwan. But China won’t believe those assurances if we don’t live up to our assurances to Ukraine.
So failing to help Ukraine could lead to future attacks on America’s allies, like Taiwan and the Baltic nations. And if our allies were conquered, one after another, eventually the U.S. itself could be threatened.
The U.S. has spent $120 billion on aid to Ukraine in response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and provided another $62 billion worth of military equipment from its defense stocks, and military training. Europe has spent $139 billion on aid to Ukraine. (Most of Europe’s aid came in the form of loans, while over half of U.S. aid was a gift.)
This U.S. aid sounds like a lot, but it amounts to less than 0.2% of America’s GDP annually. By contrast, after World War II, the U.S. provided foreign aid to Europe worth 5.2% of America’s GDP, known as the Marshall Plan. So U.S. aid to Ukraine has been much less burdensome than past major aid programs like the Marshall Plan.
Moreover, much of the aid given by the U.S. to Ukraine was spent on weapons manufactured in the U.S., boosting U.S. factory production.
Sending aid to Ukraine keeps Russia from taking over Ukraine and then killing tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians. Russia has killed thousands of civilians in areas of Ukraine it occupies, sometimes in massacres. It has tortured and executed prisoners. If Russia takes over Ukraine, it will be on the border with Poland, America’s NATO ally, which Russian nationalists would like to take over and conquer, because much of Poland was part of Russia until 1918. The Soviet Union seized more than half of Poland from 1939-1941.
Russia has committed atrocities in the areas of Ukraine it controls.For example, in a forest outside the town of Izium, Russian forces dumped the bodies of the 445 civilians they murdered into mass graves.
Sending aid to Ukraine has enabled it to weaken Russia’s ability to make war and attack NATO. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that “The U.S. navy isn’t prepared to face Russia’s navy.” But as columnist Noah Smith pointed out, with U.S. aid, “Ukraine destroyed much of Russia’s navy, without even having a navy of their own!” Ukraine has “killed or wounded hundreds of thousands of Russian troops, and destroyed large quantities of equipment.” This has weakened Russia, and made it less of a threat to the United States.
