The price of appeasement and so-called ‘realism’ in Ukraine

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My mother-in-law was born in Ukraine, in a rural area of Dnipropetrovsk. When the Nazi army swarmed through this region in 1942, she and her family were taken back to Germany as slave labor. Fortunately, they survived and eventually emigrated to Minneapolis. A few decades later I married her daughter. It was at this point I started to call her Baba. She taught me to never mistakenly refer to a Ukrainian as a Russian; these are fighting words.

This perspective is quite understandable. Ukraine has been seeking independence for over a century. Even as they were starved into submission by Stalin during the Holodomor, their will wasn’t broken. They eventually tasted the sweet nectar of freedom in 2014 when they ousted President Victor Yanukovych, a corrupt lackey of Vladimir Putin who fled to Russia for protection. But the victory was short-lived, as Putin quickly went to work to regain Russia’s “lost” territory.

Crimea was grabbed, followed by a proxy war in eastern Ukraine. The full-fledged invasion didn’t take place until 2022, eight years after hostilities had begun. Since 2014, Ukrainians have fought valiantly while being outmanned and outgunned. Yes, many Ukrainians have grown weary of Putin’s war, but they refuse to kneel before this dictator and kiss his ring.

So where does this leave us today? Is it wrong for a nation to desire freedom? Have we come so far since 1776 that we can’t recognize when a people yearn to rid themselves of the yoke of tyranny? Apparently so, given what is coming out of Washington these days.

President Donald Trump campaigned that he would end the war immediately and it would never have started had he been in office. I hate to break it to him, but the war started three years prior to his first inauguration, and he made no effort to end it during that term in office.

Today, administration officials speak about the need to embrace “realism.” Ukraine is in a war it can’t win. It will have to cede territory to Russia and forget about that NATO membership it so desires. But think back: How realistic were our forefathers when they took on the most powerful nation on the planet, Great Britain? Yes, the odds were long, but we didn’t capitulate.

Now official peace negotiations have started in Saudi Arabia. I marvel at Trump’s skills at squeezing concessions out of Putin. I guess the plan is to give Putin everything he wants, then hope he throws you a crumb?

Let’s be real, what we see taking place with the supposed negotiations is all for public consumption. A deal likely has already been cut. It may have happened before Trump even took office. Possibly before he was elected. Seriously, would it be all that surprising to find out at some later point that Trump sold the Ukrainians down the river prior to starting the official peace talks? It seems to fit his game plan. What do Trump and his wealthy supporters gain from stabbing Ukraine in the back? Access to Russian markets and resources; there’s money to be made cozying up to Putin.

Where does this leave us? There is a lesson for both authoritarian aggressors and our democratically elected allies. Trump’s appeasement policy with Putin demonstrates the U.S. will eventually tire of defending a weaker nation. Good news for authoritarians. At the same time, allies will recognize that America can’t be depended upon; its citizens are fickle and divided, demonstrating weakness on the international stage.

In a way, it was fortunate for Baba to have died before Putin’s war started in 2014. She didn’t have to see her former homeland attacked and destroyed by its historic tormentor. Similarly, she didn’t have to witness her adopted country’s myopic decision to abandon Ukraine at the wolf’s den. These brave and noble people deserve so much more than what they’re receiving from our nation. The American light of freedom is being extinguished around the world.

Joe Spartz, of Ham Lake, is retired.