Christmas for Putin

A matter of grave importance, relayed by the chief national-security correspondent of Fox News:

• The chief foreign-affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal puts it this way:

• Back to Russian state TV:

• A column by Josh Rogin is headed “Ukraine and its supporters need to prepare for a return of Trump.” Rogin begins,

If Donald Trump returns to the presidency and tries to halt or drastically reduce U.S. military, economic and humanitarian support to Ukraine — as he has indicated he would — Ukraine would not be the only country to suffer. Russia’s likely resulting gains in the conflict would further destabilize Europe and undermine U.S. credibility worldwide. Work must be done before the 2024 election to put Ukraine in the best possible position to endure whatever a newly elected Trump might do.

But is it too late? Has the GOP made it so? If the United States abandons the Ukrainians because of the Republican Party, that party will have earned the opprobrium of the ages.

• Here is George Packer:

In the summer of 1940, when Great Britain was fighting Nazi Germany alone, Winston Churchill asked to borrow a few dozen aging American destroyers to defend the English coast from imminent invasion. Churchill wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Mr. President, with great respect, I must tell you that in the long history of the world, this is a thing to do now.”

Today Ukraine is fighting Russia alone. American aid — never timely or sufficient, but enough to help keep Ukraine alive and Russian invaders at bay — is about to run out. U.S. shipments will stop in the next few weeks. Without American artillery, ammunition, missile systems, tanks, armored vehicles, humanitarian aid, or funds for reconstruction, Ukraine will be left to face the Russian onslaught with diminishing odds of survival. The Biden administration has asked Congress to vote for another $61 billion in aid for Ukraine. So far, Republicans are refusing. Members plan to leave D.C. for the holidays on December 15. This is a thing for them to do now.

(Those are the first two paragraphs of this article.)

• John McCormack, with some straight talk about Vivek Ramaswamy (and the many, many like him):

That is right. The Ukrainians are paying in blood; we have been paying in money and matériel. In the future, we may not get off so lightly. If Putin is allowed to conquer Ukraine, and sets his sights on the next conquest, and the next, we may not get off so lightly. People tend not to learn anything from the past. This is a constant of human affairs.

(People keep being born, remarkably enough, and other people keep dying. Humanity is often at square one.)

• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is of course a villain in the eyes of many Americans. The media they consume have made him so. Ramaswamy has called Zelensky a “comedian in cargo pants,” and worse.

I agree with Luke Harding.

I further agree with George F. Will, who, in a podcast with me last year, said this: “Our capacity for praise often atrophies from disuse. It’s time to sit back and praise Zelensky. This is what a hero looks like.”

From Zelensky, a simple message:

• It’s important to know something about the Kremlin’s official media — what they are injecting into the minds of people. Here is a further sample:

• A report from the Associated Press begins,

Four Russian men accused of torturing an American during the invasion of Ukraine have been charged with war crimes in a first-of-its-kind case, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday.

“This is our first,” said Merrick Garland, the attorney general, “and you should expect more.” He further said, “We will not forget the atrocities in Ukraine. And we will never stop working to bring those responsible to justice.”

• Let me recommend an article by Daniel Hannan, the British politician and writer. It is headed, “If we don’t see Ukraine through to victory, this war risks turning into our next Suez.” (Brits with a memory, or a knowledge of 20th-century history, are haunted by the Suez Crisis.) Hannan’s article concludes,

. . . we probably don’t have years. In less than 12 months, Trump, with his weird adulation for Putin, could be back in the White House. The West would be seen, like Britain at Suez, to have given up for want of resolve. Other countries would draw their own conclusions. The world would become altogether darker and colder.

• Everywhere, I see bad news for the Ukrainians — in reports from the United States, Hungary, and elsewhere. Their enemies seem to be gaining ground. The hostility to the Ukrainians, around the world, is daunting (and appalling). Yet they are still standing. It’s amazing that they are, at this late date. I am full of admiration for them: for their courage, their patriotism, their determination to hang on to their country, in the face of a monstrous invader — for their will to live.

They are setting an example for all, whether we know it or not.