If Ukraine does not defeat Russia in the coming six months, the West is likely to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But an acceptable negotiated outcome will be almost impossible to achieve. Following Putin’s recent diplomatic successes, the West can ill afford another foreign policy failure.
OPINION — The NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg sounded reassuringly robust when he declared recently that “All NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member” but he omitted a timeframe in which that might happen. The German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius dampened any elation with the words, “The door is open a crack, but this is not the time to decide now.”
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