Free Republic

The problem is Moscow doesn’t want peace in Ukraine, it wants Ukraine in pieces. Every time the White House offers an olive branch, the Kremlin torches it and commits more heinous war crimes. Washington floated a leaders’ summit in October, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wiped his shoes with it, demanding Ukraine stop resisting and the West ignore kidnapped kids and beheaded prisoners. Well, Trump pulled the plug on Budapest, signaling he might punish the Kremlin, and a panicking Vladimir Putin dispatched Kirill Dmitriev with a “peace plan” so absurd it would shame a mid-level propagandist. To make sure...

-snip- Moscow has had many chances but repeatedly failed to shed its imperial skin. Defeats in the Crimean War and the Russo-Japanese War did not prompt a reckoning. Unlike Spain, Portugal or Belgium, which relinquished colonies and transitioned into post-imperial nations, Russia viewed its losses as temporary setbacks. Even the Soviet Union’s collapse after the humiliating defeat in Afghanistan didn’t extinguish this imperial ethos. Russia’s forerunner, Muscovy owed its rise in the 13th century to the role of a tax collector for the Golden Horde, allowing its princes to amass wealth and outmaneuver rivals. In contrast, Kyiv had already thrived...