World Leaders must Understand that Russia’s War against Ukraine is its Last Stand

The Kremlin threw down the gauntlet to the free world and the Russian leadership won’t budge until its mission is fulfilled.

This is the only certainty that you can count on since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

The Russians are not shying away from this truth irrespective of telephone calls between President Donald Trump and Russian despot Putin. Moscow leaders have been quite truthful at least on this issue regardless of how many bilateral or multilateral meetings are held in the Oval Office, Alaska or elsewhere about ending Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

It has been stated loudly and quietly by Russian leaders. Putin will not change his mind. He’s not looking for negotiations. He’s not looking to barter land for peace or Russian KIAs/POWs. He’s not looking for a line in the sand delineating what’s his and what’s Ukraine’s.

Moscow isn’t hunting Nazis in Ukraine as Putin said at the start of the war. Putin doesn’t care about protecting Russian-speakers Ukraine – many of them are on the frontline defending their native land. He’s not concerned by Ukraine’s European support, weaponry or NATO affiliation. Simply stated, Russia wants it all – from the Carpathians to the Caucasus.

To understand the situation better than he does, Trump has to listen to the words spoken by Putin and his capos and stop listening to his own misconceptions.

Eight decades ago, Winston Churchill, the liberator of Europe, offered his solution to a similar global situation. He argued that Europe must fight Nazism to preserve freedom, democracy, and civilization itself against a “monstrous tyranny.” In the years leading up to and during Second World War, he forcefully rejected appeasement and urged collective resistance against German expansionism. His explanations centered on several key arguments. We can easily equate Nazism with Russia and its expansionism.

Churchill portrayed Nazism as a barbarous ideology, distinct from typical national concepts, representing an evil system that threatened Western civilization. Putin also hopes to continue rolling his tanks beyond Ukraine, as many East European and European leaders believe and fear.

A staunch critic of appeasing Hitler, Churchill predicted that concessions, like the Munich Agreement of 1938, would lead to wider conflict rather than peace, likening it to feeding a crocodile in hopes of being eaten last. Ukraine’s allies, especially those in the east that suffered Russian tyranny also believe appeasement won’t work with Russia. Sanctions must be intensified to a boiling point.

Churchill warned that Germany’s expansionist goals threatened all European nations, not just immediate neighbors, aiming for continental domination and emboldening Hitler through submission. The former captive nations are free now but Moscow is hoping to change that.

He framed the war as a fight for freedom and democracy, with Britain acting as the champion of European liberties and appealing to a spirit of resistance against tyranny. Churchill emphasized in 1940 that victory was essential for survival, with Britain serving as the last defense against Hitler and crucial for Europe’s liberation. Today’s war in Ukraine not only defends Ukrainians and their country but also all of Europe – and perhaps even the United States, which must earnestly life up to its traditional reputation as the champion of the free world.

In his “Finest Hour” speech, delivered in June 1940, Churchill explicitly stated that the fate of “Christian civilization” and the whole world depended on Britain’s survival against Nazi Germany. He argued that if Britain failed, the world would sink into “the abyss of a new Dark Age” made more terrifying by “perverted science.” The leaders of the former captive nations, who know firsthand the meaning of Russian captivity, are also well aware of the consequences if Russia prevails in its war against Ukraine.

In a 1941 broadcast, Churchill declared his single, unwavering purpose: “to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime.” He described the Nazi system as based on calculated cruelty and listed the suffering inflicted across Europe, from the bombings of Warsaw and Rotterdam to the overflowing concentration camps. The same goal pertains to ending the scourge that is Russia.

At the end of World War Two, there was a widespread fear that never having witnessed the realities of life under the Nazi heel, Americans were obstinately incredulous of barbarity suffered in France and therefore too lenient with those responsible. That same feeling guides the thoughts of President Trump with regard to Ukrainians and others who have suffered barbarity in Russia and its concentration camps and today are too lenient with those responsible such as Putin.