Putin is THE dictator and 9 other Ukraine-Russia war truths we ignore at our peril
This has been a dizzying and disorienting week in international diplomacy. One with wild implications for Ukraine, the future of America’s standing in the world and President Trump’s legacy.
President Trump is absolutely right in wanting to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. The suffering has been appalling and the stalemate brutal. But in the furious mix of wild opinions this week from the White House down, there are at least 10 truths which every American voter must hang onto.
In Trump’s rush to end the bloodshed, these are also the truths against which any deal will be judged and will define him when the history books are written.
To ignore them or not treat them with the gravity they deserve will also have enormous consequences for decades to come:
TRUTH No. 1
Vladimir Putin started this war, despite what President Trump said days ago.
In February 2022, following a massive build-up on Ukraine’s borders, Putin’s army launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There is no rational narrative outside of Russian propaganda that blames “aggressive” actions by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or NATO that can justify such a military action. This came after Putin had already seized Crimea in 2014 and launched a war in the Donbas, in eastern Ukraine.
And that doesn’t include the other wars he started, like that against the tiny nation of Georgia in 2008.
Trump is absolutely right that the war “never had to start.” I believe it is true that it wouldn’t have started if he had been in the Oval Office. But it was Putin, not Zelensky, who started the war.
TRUTH No. 2
Russia is fighting for conquest. The Russian Federation invaded Ukraine in 2022. Whatever you think of the country or its leadership, Ukraine is an internationally recognized sovereign nation. Putin invaded in the hope of devouring the country wholesale. By contrast, Ukraine has absolutely no territorial ambitions in Russia.
And remember the brutality of Russia’s actions. Among the multitude depravities and war crimes committed by Putin’s army has been the abduction of some 20,000 Ukrainian children. Who wants to live in a world where the strong can simply devour the weak, and kidnap little children by their thousands? Why hasn’t the US put their release at the top of the list of their negotiating demands?
TRUTH No. 3
Ukraine is fighting for its independence. Most Ukrainians do not want to be part of Russia. They do not want to be governed from Moscow. The vast majority want to live in an independent, sovereign country in control of its own future.
TRUTH No. 4
Ukrainians are not Russians. Ukrainians and Russians are not “one people — a single whole,” as Putin wrote in a 2021 essay. He is also simply lying in his assertion that “modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era.”
Ukrainians and Russians are two separate ethnic groups. They speak different languages and have distinct histories.
TRUTH No. 5
Putin is a dictator. Putin has ruled Russia with an iron KGB fist since coming to power in 1999. He has ruthlessly quashed independent media, ended free and fair elections, crushed civil-society and killed his political opponents. And not just inside Russia, but around the world. People who live inside Russia and express any opposition to the war are imprisoned.
TRUTH No. 6
Zelensky is not a dictator. A political outsider, Zelensky won the 2019 presidential election, which was relatively free and fair. He has a 57% approval rating, not the 4% Trump claimed.
Unlike in Russia, Ukraine has a vibrant independent media which holds the government to account — despite claims to the contrary by internet swamp creatures and Russian bots.
Many Ukrainians freely criticize the government’s conduct of the war. When Britain was fighting for its survival against the Nazis in the 1940s, it too did not hold elections.
The Russian ambassador to the UK spent yesterday crowing that he’s “not sure” Zelensky would be re-elected if there were elections today. But we all know one thing for sure. Whether or not Zelensky would be re-elected in Ukraine, Putin will always be re-elected in Russia. Because his elections are con-jobs. Pageant-shows. Putin hasn’t won a free and fair election in his life. Because he doesn’t hold them.
TRUTH No. 7
Russia is not a friend of the US. It is a hostile, nuclear-armed state that resents American power and the world the US has built. It has ever closer relations with China, Iran and North Korea. In fact all of its main friends are countries that are the biggest foes of America.
TRUTH No. 8
Ukraine is a friend of the US. Ukraine wants to be part of the American-led order. Its people and government are deeply pro-American. Since the start of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian men and women I have seen fighting at the front lines are fighting the Russian military to protect their loved ones and their country. They also do it in the knowledge that if they fail, other countries will be next.
TRUTH No. 9
Putin cannot be trusted. This isn’t just a statement of fact. It is also something that 81% of American voters agree on.
Putin has invaded multiple countries in violation of every international treaty. He has interfered in multiple elections in his nearest neighbors. He has violated international agreements, including the INF Treaty with the US.
He has lied to American presidents and European leaders his whole career. He has lied to Trump even since Trump has been back in office. Most recently Putin promised that he wouldn’t target Ukrainian energy facilities.
Yet just this week he carried out a massive missile and drone attack against multiple energy facilities in Ukraine. It is almost as though Putin’s word doesn’t count for very much and he doesn’t care if you know it.
TRUTH No. 10
American aid to Ukraine is not being wasted.
Nobody would argue that Ukraine is a country without corruption. But that does not mean its people and sovereignty should not be protected.
We should also remember which country in this war is truly corrupt. Russia is one vast, kleptocratic state, led by Putin and a small cartel of oligarchs who have made themselves among the richest people on earth. All while keeping most of the Russian population in a state of poverty which would not be believed by most of us in the West.
Putin and his cronies have been accumulating power and wealth all their careers. And they will torture and kill anyone who exposes this corruption. Remember his political opponent Alexey Navalny and the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky? It is easy to expose corruption in Ukraine. But in Russia it is deadly.
Besides, according to the Department of Defense, some $58 billion out of the $183 billion in Ukraine aid has been spent in America. It is money that has benefited American workers and industries.
The war has also degraded the military of one of the despotic regimes in the world and reduced their threat to not just Europe but America without one US soldier being killed. It has also sent a strong deterrent message to China, Iran and North Korea not to try the same.
You can criticize Zelensky. Complain. But we should be under no illusions about who started this fire and who the true dictator or villain of this tragic tale is.
President Trump has a chance to bring an end to this war, to stop the killing. Maybe even win a Nobel Prize for Peace.
But he will not be honored if the peace is an appeasement, one that bows down in the face of evil as it denies obvious truths.
The judgment of history will be even harsher — decades of peace and prosperity in Europe and America thrown away to a resurgent Russia harassing the east. Without a strong peace, it won’t be just Ukraine that suffers. It is all of us.
That is the ultimate truth.
