OPINION — By now, much of the world has increasingly started to truly understand just how far Russia’s Vladimir Putin is from Ukraine and the West when it comes to wanting peace. The world has watched in horror as Putin’s military savages Ukraine’s cities, homes, schools, and hospitals. Every day brings new footage of children pulled from rubble, of civilians killed in missile strikes, of infrastructure bombed not for strategic value, but for the sole purpose of breaking Ukraine’s will. And yet—amid this brutality—some in the West continue to push for Ukrainian restraint, for a stop to the fighting on Russia’s terms, and for concessions that reward invasion with territory and more. Are we really going to let parts of Ukraine be gobbled up and crushed while lecturing its people about compromise?
Enough. It’s time to shift from timid appeasement to strategic dominance. That means helping Ukraine win.
Let’s be clear: helping Ukraine win does not mean rolling into Moscow. It means driving Russian forces out of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, restoring borders, and crushing the Kremlin’s ability to wage aggressive war. It means showing the world—especially Russia and China—that democracies won’t fold when authoritarian powers try to redraw maps by force.
Today, Russia’s forces are grinding forward in eastern Ukraine. They’re threatening key cities like Pokrovsk, gaining psychological momentum and physical ground. Their industrial war machine, now increasingly operating at scale, churns out killer drones and missiles with near impunity. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defenders are struggling to hold the line, their supplies thin and their populations and cities vulnerable.
This must stop. The West has the tools to shift the war’s balance and, thereby, also re-position the terms of negotiations.
And this should appeal to the U.S. president who likes negotiating from a position of strength--with real teeth--that sets up an actual negotiated deal versus an endless series of meetings, threats, and peace plans, all while Ukraine bleeds and Putin makes gains at home and in Ukraine. And while China's Xi watches.
And here's a vital point: just talking about these measures shifts the strategic landscape, which occurred when the U.S. president said he was displeased with Putin and was going to enact secondary sanctions on Russia’s oil sales several weeks ago.
If the West shows that it’s truly serious, then even before the first missile flies or sanction bites, the pressure changes. Negotiations would no longer be about what Ukraine must give up, but what Russia must stop doing if it wants to survive economically and militarily. That’s how we change the West's and Ukraine's negotiating strength.
Marching Orders
Let’s start with the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets sitting in Western coffers. Right now, we allow the interest from that money to support Ukraine. That’s a timid half-measure. Instead, seize the principal—yes, all of it—over time for Ukraine’s war fighting, even greater arms industrialization, including for Western weapons manufacturers and suppliers to Ukraine, and eventual reconstruction. Ukraine should not have to beg for bullets while Putin builds still more drones and bombs, even if it is with money from his dwindling reserves and oil sales.
Second, flood Ukraine with advanced air defense systems—Patriots, IRIS-Ts, SAMP/Ts—and establish partnerships with Western defense manufacturers to scale up weapons production on European and U.S. soil in a substantial and even more rapid way. Some efforts have started; now it’s time to turbocharge them. Protect Ukraine’s people, skies, cities, and infrastructure with urgency—not over years, but in months or less.
Third, end the restrictions that prevent Ukraine from striking targets inside Russia. Right now, many of Moscow’s war factories, command and control facilities, logistics hubs, and more operate untouched—safe in the knowledge that Western-supplied weapons can’t reach them. That’s a strategic gift to the Kremlin. Let Ukraine hit back. Let Russia feel the ramifications of its monstrous violence and aggression.
Germany, for example, has long-range Taurus cruise missiles—precisely the type of weapons Ukraine needs to take out heavily defended targets inside Russian-occupied territory as well as Russian supply lines, command and control locations, and key choke points, such as bridges. Berlin has offered to help Ukraine develop long-range capability, but won’t supply the Taurus directly due to fears it could be used on Russian soil. Enough. Send the missiles. Give Ukraine the range, precision, and firepower to make continued Russian brutality and escalation come at a steep cost.
Fourth, oil—Putin’s lifeblood. Russia’s war machine runs on fossil fuel revenue. The West’s oil price cap has been riddled with loopholes and weak enforcement from the start. It’s time to fix that. Impose debilitating secondary sanctions and tariffs on every country that buys Russian oil in large quantities or above the price cap—without exception. No more free passes for China, India (against which Washington has imposed additional tariffs beginning later this month), NATO member Turkey, or any others, including European nations. Slash the price cap. Reduce the volume that can be sold. Make every barrel of oil that Moscow sells return even less with which it can kill Ukrainians.
And fifth, harshly go after Russia's economy across the board. As Ukraine’s Presidential Office Head, Andriy Yermak, recently argued in The Washington Post, the West must disconnect Gazprombank from SWIFT, and cut off Russia’s access to the international financial system if it really wants to change the ballgame. Also, target Rosatom, Roscosmos, and every other state agency enabling Russia’s war economy. Squeeze them out of global markets. Shut down dual-use technology transfers, and prosecute those enabling Russian logistics and cyber operations, including crypto infrastructure providers.
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Teaching All Authoritarians a Lesson
Predictably, Russia will forcefully lash out. There will be even more aggression against Ukraine, and nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction saber-rattling, as well as increased "gray zone" attacks, cyber strikes and campaigns, information operations and propaganda, and much more.
Putin thrives on fear. But if we give in to it now, such as with one-sided territorial and other concessions on Putin's terms, we will pay much, much more later—in Ukraine, in Taiwan, in other parts of Europe, including the Baltics, and beyond.
The lesson to dictators must be this: war, rape, child abductions, torture, and genocidal conquest will not be tolerated. There will be powerful, punishing consequences and you will lose.
It’s time to stop hiding behind “avoiding escalation.” Russia escalated years ago when it invaded Ukraine not once but twice. It continues to escalate daily with every missile strike on civilians, every drone attack on power stations and other infrastructure, every load of kidnapped children taken to be “re-educated” and adopted in Russia.
We must make Putin pay the costs--gargantuan costs--that come with carrying out a war and brutality, thereby compelling him and his supporters to reel back and suffer, and causing other authoritarians and dictators considering a similar path to see their dreadful fate too.
History does not reward those who counsel surrender and accept an ill-conceived and dangerous precedent in the face of evil (e.g., Neville Chamberlain). It remembers those who fought back—and those who helped them win. Ukraine still has the will to fight. What it needs is for the West to match that will and action. Fight, fight, fight, as the U.S. president likes to say — and help Ukraine win.
This is the moment. No appeasement. No more half-measures. No more fear.
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