Michael Rubin
The Idea of Partition for Ukraine: Bad Idea
Put aside how this would reward Russian belligerence and perhaps encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to repeat in Moldova and northern Kazakhstan the land grabs he has undertaken in Georgia and Ukraine.
Putin may accelerate his conquests if he figures he can count on President Donald Trump and Kellogg to rationalize aggression in a way future U.S. presidents will not.
Putin might toast Kellogg’s compromise, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan might insert himself as a behind-the-scenes mediator.
Still, both Russia and Turkey might rue the day they acquiesce to any change in Ukraine’s borders. Frankly, so too might China and Nigeria.
Putin justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in part on the need to protect Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine whom many Kremlin voices and their amplifiers in the West said did not want to be part of Ukraine anyway. The willingness of Russian-speaking Ukrainians to fight and die for their country belied this, while the brutality of Russian forces ended any latent sympathy some Ukrainians had toward Moscow.
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