Editorial written by New York Daily News Editorial Board.
President Donald Trump’s deadline of today for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine seems ready to come and go with no deal. We wish the president’s desire for peace was fulfilled, for as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says: “the war must end. And it must be done honestly,” meaning a complete withdrawal of invading Russian troops.
But this is Putin’s war and Putin has not achieved his war aims, namely to conquer Kyiv.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin at the Kremlin this week and now there are plans that Trump will sit down with Putin and Zelenskyy soon.
We hope that Trump, a salesman for more than half a century, can put on the charisma and win over Vlad, but the ex-KGB lieutenant colonel is probably immune to the Donald’s charms.
Having been back in the White House for six months now, Trump must finally be realizing that he can’t end this war “in 24 hours,” as he boasted when he was out of office.
Putin will respond only to military defeats and economic pressure. The Ukrainians will bloody him on the battlefield and the U.S. and our allies must keep on the sanctions to blunt Putin’s power and his vision of an imperial Russia retaking its place in the firmament of global powers.
Putin’s withdrawal and ending this war will not be pleasant for him. But his failure to quickly capture Kyiv following the February 2022 invasion set the stage for the grinding conflict that is draining both Russia and Ukraine of blood and treasure.
In an ideal world, Putin’s recalcitrance to end his folly will at least finally convince Trump that there is not and was never going to be a quick and easy solution that he could be seen to personally mediate in his apparent quest to get a Nobel peace prize.
We hope that it’s become clear to Trump that the only reason any negotiations are even happening as opposed to a Putin puppet already calling the shots in Ukraine is that the Ukrainian forces have continued to receive the support of the international community, including necessary arms replenishment and supplies from the United States.
Despite his missteps and confusion, Trump is right about one thing: the only way out of this mess is dialogue until the sides can reach a resolution, which must happen from a position of strength for Ukraine.
A final deal rests on having each side feel like it can claim some measure of victory, which may entail some concessions to Russia, although there should be some clear nonnegotiables. Among those, the most important is the crux of this entire mess in the first place: Ukraine’s territorial integrity, which must be preserved at least to the borders that existed as of the time of the invasion. Beyond being moral, this is for practical reasons.
As much as Putin has lost in this campaign — military capability, economic strength and hundreds of thousands of lives — he may well consider it a template worth repeating if he ultimately gets the chunk of territory he so desperately desires.
For the sake of Europe’s — and our — continued security, it must be made crystal clear to Putin that his objectives of territorial expansion have failed absolutely. Perhaps this debacle might also temper some of Trump’s own stated territorial ambitions; the age of military annexations is over, for good reason.
