Robert Kagan, husband of Victoria Nuland, the then-State Department official who helped orchestrate the neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine in February of 2014, has sent his own set of marching orders regarding Ukraine to President-elect Donald Trump via a lengthy commentary in The Atlantic. “Vice-president Elect J. D. Vance once said that he doesn’t care what happens to Ukraine. We will soon find out whether the American people share his indifference, because if there is not soon a large new infusion of aid from the United States, Ukraine will likely lose the war within the next 12 to 18 months,” Kagan wrote at the outset. Ukraine, he claims, faces “a complete defeat, a loss of sovereignty, and full Russian control.”
“This poses an immediate problem for Donald Trump,” he continues. “He promised to settle the war quickly upon taking office, but now faces the hard reality that Vladimir Putin has no interest in a negotiated settlement that leaves Ukraine intact as a sovereign nation.
“Trump must now choose between accepting a humiliating strategic defeat on the global stage and immediately redoubling American support for Ukraine while there’s still time. The choice he makes in the next few weeks will determine not only the fate of Ukraine but also the success of his presidency.”
Putin must be stopped because “He wants it all,” that is, all of Ukraine.
Kagan makes clear that what’s at stake is NATO’s proxy war in which Ukraine is used as a battering ram against Russia. “Putin’s stated terms for a settlement have been consistent throughout the war: a change of government in Kyiv in favor of a pro-Russian regime; ‘de-Nazification,’ his favored euphemism for extinguishing Ukrainian nationalism; demilitarization, or leaving Ukraine without combat power sufficient to defend against another Russian attack; and “neutrality,” meaning no ties with Western organizations such as NATO or the EU, and no Western aid programs aimed at shoring up Ukrainian independence,” he says.
