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In Monday’s Wall Street Journal there will appear the editorial set out below.
I recommend the entire editorial but call to your attention to the opening sentence of the final paragraph, “Mr. Putin said he’s ‘ready to talk any time’ with Mr. Trump, and some will dismiss his tough talk as merely the opening bid in what will be an inevitable deal.”
For the sake of argument, let us say that all of Putin’s tough talk is simply an opening bid — he will have positioned himself far better than President-elect Trump.
Since he began running for re-election, Trump has talked about ending the war, negotiations, about Ukraine ceding territories occupied by Russia, and his designated war negotiator, retired general Keith Kellogg, talks in terms of a cease-fire and then astoundingly criticized Ukraine for killing Russian General Igor Krillov. “When you kill commanders, senior officers, admirals, or generals in their hometowns, it's too much and not [in line within] the rules of war; I don't think it's a good idea,” Kellogg told Fox News on December 18.
To what “rules of war” was Kellogg referring? Certainly not the ones the United States applied when shooting down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1943.
Even if Kellogg draws a “hometown” distinction, why did he think it was appropriate to make his thoughts public?
How long will Ukraine and the vital national security interests of the United States and Europe have to put up with Western “leaders” who treat this genocidal war as some sort of parlor game, giving Ukraine too little in weapons support, too late, and with restrictions on how those weapons can be used?
Washington would never tie an American commander’s arms behind their back in such a way.
This war would have ended in a Ukrainian victory months ago had the United States and Europe grasped the fact that Putin is their determined enemy and had learned anything from their own history of the 1930s.
It is not too late.
President-elect Trump called Putin a month ago and told the Russian leader not to escalate in Ukraine.
Has Trump paid attention to Putin’s response?
Since that call, Russia has launched an unprecedented missile, artillery, and drone assault on Ukraine – mostly civilian and infrastructure targets. There is a word for that – “Escalation”.
Russian television broadcast a program featuring nude and semi-nude photos of First Lady to be Melania Trump. There are words for that “brazen public disrespect.”
To most leaders – to most men – Putin’s response would be clear. He has told Trump publicly to “go &^&^%$$^% himself”.
Putin has a weak hand; and he has played to great effect so far.
Trump’s hand is much – much stronger, the stakes are huge, please, Mr. Trump, do not allow Putin to call your bluff.
It is time to let Putin know his response has been received loud and clear and that starting on January 20, there will be hell to pay as Ukraine will be given everything it needs and unconditional permission to defeat Russia.
Putin Sends Trump a Ukraine Message
The Russian suggests his price for peace is Kyiv’s defeat and U.S. humiliation.
By The Editorial Board | Dec. 22, 2024, 4:49 pm ET
Donald Trump wants to end the war in Ukraine, and who doesn’t? Apparently Vladimir Putin, who used his annual end-of-year news conference last week to send the President-elect a message about his peace terms.
“Now, regarding the conditions for starting negotiations: We have no preconditions,” Mr. Putin said before outlining sweeping preconditions. Talks would be “based on” 2022 negotiations in Istanbul and “proceeding from the current realities on the ground,” he said.
Russia’s 2022 Istanbul proposal called for Ukraine to abandon aspirations to join NATO, become a permanently neutral state, and drastically shrink its armed forces. This would ratify Russia’s territorial gains and render Ukraine defenseless against inevitable future Russian aggression.
When the Kremlin floated that plan, Russian troops were in Bucha and Irpin—about as close to the center of Kyiv as JFK airport is to midtown Manhattan. Ukraine has since driven the Russians out of Kyiv and the regions of Kherson and Kharkiv, broken Russia’s Black Sea naval blockade, and taken the fight to Russian territory in the Kursk region. But Russia is making gains in Ukraine’s east with the help of China’s technology and North Korean manpower and artillery, albeit at the cost of enormous casualties.
Mr. Putin also referred to his speech last June when he demanded that the West drop all sanctions on Russia and that Ukraine withdraw from the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Asked if he could return to February 2022, the Russian dictator expressed no regrets about his invasion but said “the decision that was made at the beginning of 2022 should have been made earlier.” That could have been during Mr. Trump’s first term in office.
Mr. Putin said he’s “ready to talk any time” with Mr. Trump, and some will dismiss his tough talk as merely the opening bid in what will be an inevitable deal. But it’s a mistake to think the Kremlin boss has given up his designs to turn Ukraine into a vassal state like Belarus. Letting Russia prevail in Ukraine on anything close to Mr. Putin’s terms would send a message of appeasement that would surely mean a larger war in the future. Mr. Trump can’t let Ukraine become his Afghanistan.
Appeared in the December 23, 2024, print edition as 'Putin Sends Trump a Ukraine Message'
ROBERT MCCONNELL
Co-Founder, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation
Director of External Affairs, Friends of Ukraine Network
The introduction is Mr. McConnell’s and does not necessarily represent the views of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation or those of the Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN).