This column references a Wall Street Journal article from Aug. 9-10, 2025.
I am truly befuddled by this week’s conversation concerning the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin and his war against Ukraine. The word “compromise” is in the air. What is Ukraine going to give up for peace? Am I the only person who thinks this is absolutely absurd?
Let’s follow the war. A dictator wakes up one morning and decides to attack, take over, conquer another country. The rationale he has stated includes the country is mine anyway, the people have no history or culture of their own, they are Russian, and Ukraine is becoming too close with Europe and the west. Does any of this sound remotely justified? In today’s world order, are dictators allowed to take over other countries because they want to?
The dictator did not initially tell his country’s citizens that he attacked another country. The invasion went poorly. He then had to explain and lie to his subjects because he needed them to conscript because his army was sustaining terribly high losses. After the losses forced him to tell his country what he was doing, he outlawed calling his invasion and subsequent war as “war.” He admitted to kidnapping 3,000 children in Ukraine and moving them deep into Russia for indoctrination. The Russian news media is not allowed to accurately portray what is truly occurring.
The dictator then resorted to offering salaries to new recruits five or 10 times the average salary in the country to entice enlistment (signing bonuses, high salaries, relief of family debt, death benefits). New recruits are given very little training and hence are being killed in the battlefield at alarming rates. Finally, he is obscuring his casualties, losses, and how the war is proceeding because of the backlash he would receive from his subjects. There is zero justification for his actions, his subjects are partially standing behind him because he is bribing them and not really letting them know what is happening, and hundreds of thousands of people from several countries are dead and more are dying literally every day.
Needless to say, the dictator’s invasion hasn’t gone well. Maybe his army wasn’t quite prepared, maybe the Ukrainian support for their own sovereign country was stronger than expected. In either case, what does dictator Putin do? For two years he expands the war by specifically TARGETING CIVILIANS in cities throughout Ukraine, every single night this year, in an attempt to break the will of its citizens. Putin has killed over 10,000 civilians, not as collateral damage, but by actively targeting them. When you state the facts, it doesn’t sound good, it doesn’t sound rational, it sounds like it is coming from a deranged human being.
Let me recap. Over these two years of war and war crimes, in order to sustain and remain in control, Putin must lie to his country’s citizens. He must obfuscate the death toll of Russia’s military, he has to continually recreate an entirely fictitious rationale for the war, he must keep discipline with the media internally and lie to the media and governments outside his country, and he must continually find new recruits to take the brunt of the defense from Ukraine.
Now back to my opening comment. Either because of pressure from Europe or the United States, the dictator of Russia is bouncing in and out of mediation or ceasefire discussion. His battle cry is now how much will Ukraine compromise, which means how much land will Ukraine cede and how much influence will Putin have over Ukraine sovereignty. I reiterate, I am befuddled. In what kind of world do we live in where the bully gets to dictate the terms of stopping his bullying and the victim gets to accept his fate, or not?
If this were my child, my business, my city, my country, the bully doesn’t get to win. How do we teach our children not to take things that do not belong to them, yet demonstrate to them, since Ukraine is not our home, someone else can take it without a care? I find asking Ukraine to compromise is ludicrous and against every moral for which I stand. I can’t help but think when the last time Europe got together to satisfy the demands of a bully, a mentally insane dictator, and how that ended.