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Saturday marked the two-year anniversary of Russian despot Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, after Moscow’s military forces took control of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. When he launched his “special military operation” in 2022, Putin expected his tanks to roll into Kyiv within days, a proof of concept for his vision of a reconstituted Soviet Union.
As the months dragged on and the offensive failed spectacularly, some optimistic observers began predicting Ukraine would win decisively, and perhaps even push into Russia. The truth is somewhere in the middle: Ukrainian forces have fought resolutely against a much larger adversary, but are worn down and on their back foot. The Russians have just taken the eastern Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka.
It’s easy to fall into the narrative trap — established both by our mass media and general conceptions of historical progress — that there is something inherent about the victory of the good side, that a smaller nation invaded by a murderous and imperialistic neighbor will still triumph.
This is not true. There is no guarantee that the right side wins, and to think so is dangerous and counterproductive. Here, the right side, Ukraine, certainly cannot prevail without help. The United States and our Western European allies have been providing aid, but it is running low. As by far the biggest player, Washington’s continued assistance is crucial.
President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and 68 other senators all agreed to send Ukraine $60 billion in a bill that passed the Senate. It would absolutely pass in the House as well, but Speaker Mike Johnson sent the chamber on vacation instead of acting, because Donald Trump wanted him to.
Advancing on the battlefield and having America frozen are good for Putin, who felt emboldened to finally get rid of Alexei Navalny, the brave man who opposed Putin’s stranglehold of corruption and violence and has now paid the ultimate price. And as much as it’s frightening to think so, there is nothing that says Putin won’t win — in his own war against democracy, in Ukraine, or even in Poland and farther afield.
