Trump's Lifeline to Putin: Cutting Ukraine's Aid Amid Russia's Collapse

Marco Rubio, Michael Waltz, and their ilk will spend the rest of their lives avoiding Ukrainians for fear of being spit on

As the war in Ukraine reaches its third year, it is undeniable that Ukraine is not just surviving but winning. What was supposed to be a three-day war for Russia has instead turned into one of the greatest military failures of the modern era. The Russian military has suffered over 800,000 casualties—dead, wounded, and missing—gutting its combat effectiveness and forcing it into increasingly desperate tactics. Gone are the days when Russia could conduct complex maneuvers with well-equipped forces. Instead, it has reverted to crude human-wave attacks, sending poorly trained convicts and conscripts to be slaughtered in the trenches. This is not the behavior of a victorious army—it is the last gasp of a military that has been bled dry.

The staggering losses extend far beyond manpower. Russia has burned through the majority of its armored vehicles, losing thousands of tanks and fighting vehicles that it can never fully replace. Its famed tank divisions, once thought to be an unstoppable force, have been reduced to graveyards of twisted metal littering the Ukrainian countryside. Russian forces are now being forced to deploy outdated, barely functional Soviet-era equipment—further proof that their military is running on fumes.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has demonstrated that the key to victory for a defending nation is simple: keep defending. A country does not have to conquer an enemy’s capital or seize vast amounts of land to win—it only needs to deny the enemy its objectives and make continued fighting unsustainable. And that is exactly what Ukraine has done. Not only has Ukraine held the line, but it has also gone on the offensive, striking deep into Russian-occupied territory and even into Russia itself. Ukrainian forces have taken land in the Kursk region, forcing Russia to divert resources to protect its own borders—a humiliating reality for a country that once dreamed of marching into Kyiv in a matter of days.

But perhaps Ukraine’s most extraordinary success has come at sea. Despite having no navy of its own, Ukraine has effectively destroyed Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Using innovative drone and missile strikes, Ukraine has crippled or sunk multiple warships, driven the Russian fleet away from key positions, and made the once-unthinkable prospect of a Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea a reality. This is an achievement that will be studied in military academies for generations. A country without a navy has beaten one of the world’s largest naval forces, forcing Russia to abandon its bases in Crimea and rendering its naval blockade ineffective.

The war has also exposed the sheer impossibility of a Russian victory. At the current rate of advance, it would take Russia over a hundred years to seize all of Ukraine, and doing so would cost tens of millions of lives. This is not a war of conquest; it is a slow, grinding, self-inflicted catastrophe for Russia. Putin’s dream of restoring the Soviet empire has turned into a nightmare of attrition, economic collapse, and growing domestic unrest. Ukraine, on the other hand, grows stronger with every passing month, continually adapting, improving, and receiving support from its allies—at least, the allies who have not abandoned it.

In 1994, Ukraine made a fateful decision when it signed the Budapest Memorandum, surrendering its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia. Russia, of course, has blatantly violated that agreement by invading Ukraine. But what is even more disgraceful is that the United States, under Donald Trump and his allies, is now failing to uphold its promise to defend Ukraine.

The Trump administration’s decision to cut off military aid is not based on strategy or principle. It is an act of desperation. Trump and his circle are watching Ukraine systematically dismantle Russia’s war machine, and they are desperate for a cease fire at any cost… Trump wants his peace prize. They know that a increasing Ukrainian capacity would leave Russia in ruins and Putin humiliated. So they are trying to do the only thing they can—force Ukraine onto a more “level playing field” by starving it of the weapons and resources it needs to finish the job. This is not just cynical. It is a betrayal of everything the United States claims to stand for. It is despicable, un-American, and a stain on our country’s reputation. It’s politics over lives, and history will not be kind.

Equally shameful is the cowardice of Republicans like Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz, who have willingly joined Trump in abandoning Ukraine. These men, who love to pose as defenders of democracy and American strength, are now doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin parroting Trump so as not to lose access to power. They will spend the rest of their lives trying to justify this decision, but history will not forget—and neither will Ukrainians. For decades to come, if Rubio and Waltz ever find themselves in the presence of Ukrainians, they will have to lower their heads and walk the other way, because they know exactly what would happen if they didn’t. They would be spit on, and deservedly so.

Ukraine has proven that it can win. It has survived, adapted, and struck back against a vastly larger enemy. It has taken Russian land, destroyed the Russian navy, and outlasted a Russian offensive that was supposed to last mere days. The only question now is whether the United States will stand by Ukraine until the war is won—or whether we will disgrace ourselves by betraying a country fighting on the front lines of democracy. History is watching, and it will remember who stood for freedom—and who sold it out.