“Mr. Putin, get out of Ukraine”
On 14 January 2025, in the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and Subcommittee on Security and Defence, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated: “The future of European and global security depends on the outcome of the war in Ukraine. […] I do not know how or when the war will end, but I do know that peace will not last if Putin gets his way in Ukraine, because then he will just keep going.”
Five days earlier, on January 9, 2025, the American Enterprise Institute, a US public policy think tank, published an illuminating report titled “Dollars and Common Sense: The US Interest in a Ukrainian Victory” and stated that by providing aid to Ukraine, “Washington may, in essence, be deterring direct war between NATO and Moscow, in which US forces would otherwise have to fight.” The report offers the following revealing statistics : “We conclude that maintaining security in a strategic environment in which Russia emerges victorious over Ukraine could cost the United States an additional $808 billion in defense spending over five years. […] Moreover, beginning in 2022, the US Congress has allocated $112 billion to the Department of Defense to assist Kyiv. That means that aid provided to Ukraine through the Pentagon is less than 14 percent of what it would cost Washington to defend Europe against a victorious Russia. Moreover, the $112 billion is spent mostly at home, on domestic arms production. Put another way, allowing Russia to defeat Ukraine would cost the United States about seven times as much as preventing a Russian victory.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, NATO Secretary General stated on January 23, 2025 that if Ukraine were to lose the war, the cost of restoring NATO's credibility and deterrence would skyrocket.
It is widely accepted that the cost of abandoning Ukraine would be astronomical for the West, as this country is not only defending its own existence, but is also preventing Russia from unleashing World War III , an outcome that would annihilate countless precious lives and cause tremendous global devastation.
Despite the high stakes, some political advisers and pseudo-experts believe that a policy that results in the appeasement of an authoritarian dictator with imperialist ambitions is the safest course of action.
They have clearly not learned the lessons of history, including British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's naive declaration "Peace for our time" after signing the Munich Agreement in 1938 to appease Hitler, which led, a year later, to World War II.
Instead, the unequivocal declaration “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” made by US President Ronald Reagan in 1987 at the Brandenburg Gate ultimately led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and, later, the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Today, US President Donald Trump could change the course of history for the benefit of all democratic countries if he were to make the following unequivocal statement: “Mr. Putin, get out of Ukraine.”
If the Kremlin sees that this is not a bluff, Russia will abandon Ukraine and a real peace will finally be possible.
Moreover, true peace will require NATO member countries, beginning with the United States, to: (a) provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs to effectively protect its airspace and liberate its territories; (b) offer Ukraine membership in NATO; (c) strengthen sanctions against Russia; and (d) seize Russia's frozen assets abroad to ensure Ukraine's victory and successful reconstruction.
President of the NGO Ukraine-2050
lanacion
