OPINION:
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It’s worth reminding ourselves that just two years ago, the U.S. and its NATO allies expected Kyiv to fall in a matter of days after Russia launched its brutal invasion. Refusing a U.S. evacuation flight at the time, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy declared, “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Courageously defending their homeland, Ukraine’s soldiers defied the odds and are still in the fight. And they still need ammunition.
I caught up with former State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert recently, after she returned from a weeklong visit to Ukraine. She and her colleagues had traveled over 1,000 miles, including to such war-ravaged cities as Kharkiv and Kryvyi Rih,
bearing witness to the stunning extent of Russia’s deliberate targeting of civilian neighborhoods, especially schools and hospitals.
Having already caused tens of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars worth of damage in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long list of war crimes includes kidnapping children, the massacre of civilians at Bucha and the bombing of a maternity ward in Mariupol. But Ms. Nauert recalled being struck more by the resilience of the Ukrainians she met: Immediately after their apartments and schools were destroyed, local residents were out in full force, repairing the damage and rebuilding.
There are some now serving in the Congress in Washington who believe we have sunk too much money into a war they believe Mr. Putin will never lose. But instead of falling for the Kremlin’s disinformation and propaganda, consider the case of the late Wagner Group commander Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who publicly exposed Mr. Putin’s lies and paid for it with his life.
“The war was not needed to demilitarize and ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine,” Mr. Prigozhin said before the plane crash that claimed his life last year, accusing Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the country’s military brass of purposely denying his mercenary army supplies, military equipment and ammunition as they fought on the front lines in Ukraine.
Despite what you may have heard, Mr. Putin is losing this war. Every day that Kyiv remains free is a win for Ukraine, as well as for the U.S.-led NATO alliance that has backed it.
Ukraine has made Russia’s invading army pay a steep price already, with hundreds of thousands of casualties and thousands of destroyed tanks. Kyiv and some 80% of Ukrainian territory remain firmly in Ukraine’s control. And U.S. support for Ukraine, which amounts to less than 5% of the Pentagon’s budget, is turbo-boosting America’s own defense industrial base, just when we need it most to deter other adversaries such as China and Iran.
The Ukraine invasion awakened NATO from its post-Cold War slumber. Having provided Ukraine $100 billion in financial, humanitarian, budget and military support, European NATO members are finally increasing their military spending to meet alliance targets; in some cases, such as Estonia, going well beyond the 2% of GDP threshold. With Finland and Sweden joining the alliance in direct reaction to Russian aggression, NATO today is stronger and more cohesive than ever before.
That’s winning.
Using drones and other asymmetric military tactics, Ukraine has kept open its Black Sea port of Odessa, which is currently operating at around 80% capacity. Resourceful administrators operate schools for thousands of children in the subway tunnels of Kharkiv. And Ukraine’s economy, far from being decimated by the invasion, is open for business with major U.S. companies still operating within its borders.
By contrast, Russia is weaker now than ever before during Mr. Putin’s reign. The Russian president would like us to believe the fiction that he can carry on his horrific war indefinitely, but his own security services, military and population understand the devastation he has caused and the meager returns the war has brought.
So let’s not appease the KGB operative-in-the-Kremlin. A strong Ukraine, backed by NATO support, is deterring Mr. Putin from further imperial land grabs. By continuing to resist the Kremlin’s armies, we will drive a wedge between Russia and its allies in the emerging axis of tyrannies: China, North Korea and Iran.
But Russia’s recent conquest of the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka should also serve as an alarm bell for both Democrats and Republicans in Washington: Every step Russia advances in Ukraine brings Mr. Putin’s army closer to threatening our NATO allies.
My grandparents’ generation, which fought in and won World War II, learned the hard way that neglecting the fight in Danzig resulted in evacuations from Dunkirk. By its inspiring resistance, Kyiv has done more than any NATO member to counter and deter Russia. Polls say the American people overwhelmingly support continued assistance to Ukraine, as does a clear majority in both the House and Senate.
Mr. Putin openly refers to the U.S. as Russia’s “main enemy.” It’s not our military might which truly threatens Mr. Putin, but rather our democratic system. America as a “shining city on a hill” serves as a beacon to freedom-loving peoples everywhere. It is very much in our national interest — politically, militarily, economically — to stay the course in Ukraine.
To educate the skeptics, the Biden administration should encourage open hearings with key Cabinet officials, including one of our nation’s greatest substantive experts on Russia and Ukraine, CIA Director William Burns. It’s past time for some straight talk about what the conflict in Ukraine means for Europe, the global economy and U.S. national security — before it’s too late.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Follow him on X @DanielHoffmanDC.
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