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As Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its second year, Vladimir Putin’s best hope for “victory” may lie with the two leading GOP candidates for president.
Without an easy political takeover of Ukraine and after massive military losses, Putin’s best option is to stalemate the war and wait for U.S. and European support for Kyiv to splinter. Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are already enabling Putin’s strategy by publicly proclaiming their willingness to cut off Kyiv. The neon-lit message to the Kremlin: Just drag this war out until 2024, when Trump or DeSantis return the GOP to power.
Meanwhile, the MAGA clique in Congress — which opposes any help for Ukraine — has made clear that it will press weak House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to block any robust new aid when the current Ukraine aid package runs out by midsummer.
If there is one urgent reason for President Joe Biden to fast-track the critical weapons systems Ukraine still needs to make a territorial breakthrough, it is MAGA’s willingness to help Putin snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
It is truly depressing to watch two potential GOP presidential candidates spout utter nonsense about Ukraine and know that this nonsense can influence voters. Although polls show that U.S. support for aiding Ukraine remains relatively strong, it is sliding, and more so among Republicans.
Perhaps some MAGA mavens still believe Trump when he proclaims that he could “end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours” and all it takes is “getting people in a room and knocking heads.”
But Trump’s conviction that he and his favored despots could resolve conflicts face to face failed miserably with North Korea, Iran, Turkey and China. And Putin, whom the former president said he trusted more than U.S. intelligence agencies, ran rings around his ill-informed American counterpart.
As for DeSantis, Trump’s most potent challenger for the 2024 nomination so far, we now know he’ll try to camouflage his minimal foreign policy experience by adopting the MAGA line on Ukraine.
The Florida governor has openly dismissed the idea that Russia poses any threat to American allies or values. He has obviously never spoken with leaders of the Baltic states, Poland, Moldova, Finland or Sweden — nor pondered why the latter two countries, which border Russia, are suddenly so eager to join NATO.
This is a war in which Ukraine is battling to defeat a war criminal willing to use his military to devour a neighboring country, something that hasn’t happened in Europe since World War II. If the West allows Putin to destroy Ukraine, use of such force will become the new normal.
First, the Biden team must make every effort to coordinate bipartisan support for Ukraine aid in Congress, where GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell and key House Republicans like Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, still understand the importance of aiding Ukraine.
Second, the White House must speed up critical weapons deliveries.
Ukraine does not need to regain all its territory within the coming months, but it must be enabled to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea in the south of the country and do so soon. This would isolate key Russian bases in Crimea and force Putin to recognize he cannot win a military victory.
Finally, Biden must speak more clearly and more often to the U.S. public about our strategic stake in a Ukrainian victory, and why Putin’s invasion threatens the values that most Americans cherish.
Ukraine can push the Russians out, but only if the U.S. and NATO allies (listen up, France and Germany) treat this war as a challenge to themselves as well as to Ukraine — and urgently speed up weapons deliveries.
And only if Trump and DeSantis, along with MAGA Republicans, are prevented from convincing Putin he need only hang on until 2024, when a new GOP president would likely permit him to win.
