Stop Pandering to Putin
“The truth appears so naked on my side, that any purblind eye may find it out.” – Shakespeare, Henry VI
August 30, 2025
The purblind believe Putin wants peace. Putin pretends he does. He doesn’t. Still, many who should know better remain obtuse, undiscerning, ill-advised, imprudent, unsuspecting—including America’s current president. So too was the ever-eloquent Barack Obama, who did little to thwart Russia’s illegal seizure of Crimea or to blunt Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas. Not that his successor, Donald Trump, did that much more. Nor did his replacement, Joe Biden. And let’s dispose of the goofy notion that Russia’s war against Ukraine is “Biden’s war,” despite the niggly musings of the White House’s current resident. What has kept this war going is a consistently inattentive and unsound American foreign policy, not the whims of individual presidents, Democratic or Republican. As a result, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed or maimed, millions displaced, and the country ravaged.
The Ukrainians should have known better. Their supposedly “suicidal nationalism” was lambasted on 1 August 1991 by a Republican president, George W H Bush, in his now-infamous “Chicken Kiev” speech. Evidently, Washington’s policy wonks were then more troubled over the prospect of the Soviet Union’s disintegration than supportive of Ukrainian independence. A few months later, 92.3% of Ukraine’s voters endorsed Ukraine’s Act of Declaration of Independence, and the USSR was no more. For Putin and his ilk, this was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” For those who lived in the once-captive nations of the Soviet empire, it was cause for rejoicing. It still is.
Faced with an independent Ukraine, Washington squandered its chance to take advantage of eastern Europe’s new geopolitical order, instead catering to Moscow’s designs and pressuring Kyiv into giving up its nuclear arsenal. The diplomacy that led to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum saw Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In return, the other signatories— the USA, UK, and Russia—reaffirmed their commitment to respecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and promised to seek immediate UN Security Council action if Ukraine became a victim of aggression. Naïvely, Ukrainians believed these were guarantees, though US negotiators clarified that гарантії (word meaning “guarantees” in Ukrainian) should instead be understood only to mean “assurances,” which was the word used in the official English text. The USA, UK, and the so-called Russian Federation never truly “guaranteed” Ukraine’s territorial integrity or sovereignty. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons for gobbledygook.
A former US president, Bill Clinton, has expressed some regret over how the Ukrainians were handled. On 4 April 2023, he reflected: “I feel a personal stake because I got them [Ukraine] to agree to give up their nuclear weapons. And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons.” In a 6 June 2024 interview with Cherwell, Oxford’s oldest independent student newspaper, Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine,
acknowledged no official deals were made but added: “We told the Ukrainians that if the Russians tried something, we would be supportive.”
Of course, no one could have foreseen Russia’s revanchism in 2014 or 2022, but Pifer did underscore how “…there’s an American interest there [for] Europe becomes a much more dangerous place if the Ukrainians lose.” On 5 March 2025, Friedrich Merz, now Germany’s Chancellor, observed: “In view of the threats to our freedom and peace on our continent, the rule for our defence now has to be ‘whatever it takes’. Germany and Europe must quickly strengthen their defence capabilities to counter Russia’s war of aggression, including through decisive support for Ukraine.” The leading European states, through their Coalition of the Willing, have finally understood that Ukraine stands defending “the gates of Europe” – and that if what’s on the other side breaks through, a Third World War will be upon us all. Some argue it already is.
But some Americans still don’t seem to get it. They badger Kyiv to accept a “peace settlement,” a capitulation that rewards the Russian aggressors—odd, given President Trump’s 2017 law affirming the USA would never recognize Crimea’s illegal annexation or the separation of Ukrainian territory by force. He seems to have changed his mind. He does that a lot. Understandably, Ukraine has rejected all calls for appeasement. That’s a dirty word.
Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine and Ukrainians will not end before Putin is dead. Ukrainians know that. They have no choice but to fight on. Tellingly, their forces are actively degrading Russia’s war machine, crippling the enemy’s economy, repeatedly besting their foes in battle, and, all the while, growing ever more self-confident and capable. None of this is without cost, but Ukraine is winning this war. When Putin and his confederates are finally finished off in their bunkers, we can celebrate another V-E Day, a real victory for European civilization.
Speaking in Kyiv, 34 years ago, George W H Bush paraphrased the words of his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, reminding listeners how “to be patronized is as offensive as to be insulted.” That’s true. Thinking of the USA as an ally, Ukrainians asked for America’s help. Thankful for the weaponry already provided, they have asked for more to finish the job. For doing so, they should not be spoken down to by anyone, not after what they have sacrificed for the Free World.
It’s now up to America to give Kyiv the weapons it needs or even to sell them to the Europeans, who will pass them on. Then Ukraine will defeat Russia comprehensively and secure a lasting and just peace. That is not assured, it’s guaranteed. Some dolts in DC might not get it, but this prescription is actually in America’s best long-term interests. Pandering to Putin is not.
Lubomyr Luciuk is a Professor Emeritus of The Royal Military College of Canada