More than three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war is at a crossroads. The United States has been pressuring Ukraine to enter negotiations with Russia, and following Friday’s acrimonious meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Trump administration has announced a pause in U.S. military aid to Kyiv. Although European countries have vowed to fill the gap and present their own peace initiative, Ukraine’s future hangs in a delicate balance.
Any deal between Washington and Moscow that sidelines Kyiv “would hasten both Russian short-term and long-term objectives while validating aggression as a legitimate strategy,” argues Andriy Zagorodnyuk, the former Ukrainian defense minister, in a new essay. “If Putin emerges victorious after standing on the brink of failure solely because of a sudden shift in U.S. policy, it will reshape global security in dangerous ways.” That is why, Zagorodnyuk writes, even in the face of ebbing U.S. support, “Ukrainians, who know the awful cost of this war better than anyone, have no choice but to fight for their country’s survival.”
Start reading this and other Foreign Affairs essays about what comes next in the war in Ukraine:
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