The Other McCain

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Liberals Want Ukraine to Negotiate?

Posted on | May 21, 2022 | 1 Comment

There hasn’t been much alteration of the tactical situation in Ukraine since our Monday update (“Ukraine: Donbas Battles Intensify”). The Russians have made some advances from Popasna and west of Lyman, but the battlefronts haven’t really shifted. While there were reports earlier this week that Ukraine was mounting a counteroffensive near Izyum, we haven’t seen evidence of that in terms of moving the lines on the map. However, there was this bit of interesting news:

David Axe of Forbes points out the significance of this location. The Ukrainian forces must be closing in on Izyum if their artillery can hit just a few miles northwest of the city. Meanwhile, about 15 miles west of Lysychansk, the Russians tried for the third time in two weeks to make a pontoon crossing of the Siversky Donets River, with the same disastrous results as their first two attempts. Ukraine claims to have wiped out an entire Russian battalion again in this operation, and while this has not yet been independently confirmed, it’s not beyond belief, given what we’ve seen in the past. The Ukrainians hold two key bridgeheads on the northern (or eastern) bank of the Siversky Donets, at Lyman and Severodonetsk. The Russians want to cross the river in order to outflank these positions and force a Ukrainian retreat. The failure of the Russians so far to accomplish these river crossings is good news for Ukraine, but not the smashing counteroffensive we had expected to see after the Russians were pushed back from Kharkiv. Meanwhile, however, the liberal Surrender Caucus has made its presence known:

A growing chorus in Washington and Europe is urging President Zelensky to lay down and play dead. If only Russia were permitted to eat up the Donbas region of Ukraine, they say, there would be peace in our time — just as there was supposed to be after Hitler was allowed to seize the Sudetenland.
This call is intensifying as the financial cost of America’s involvement in the European war is passing $56 billion and rising. As Republican fiscal hawks and Democrat doves are beginning to push back, Ukraine could become politically hazardous for President Biden as America hurtles toward the midterms.
The latest voice in this chorus is the New York Times editorial board, which often voices un-uttered White House sentiments and policy prescriptions. Now it is advocating a war-ending path. In an editorial Friday, the paper declared, “It is still not in America’s best interest to plunge into an all-out war with Russia, even if a negotiated peace may require Ukraine to make some hard decisions.”
The recipe seems simple: End the Ukraine war in a way that would allow the invader, Vladimir Putin, to save face.

Why? Or rather, why now? Ukraine has fought Russia to a stalemate in the Donbas, they’ve managed to hold Odessa in the south, while vanquishing the Russian invaders in Kyiv and Kharkiv. The Ukrainians claim to be inflicting 100-200 casualties a day on the invaders, so that Putin’s army could be losing men at the rate of about 5,000 a month. So long as Ukraine can continue to fight and win, time is on their side. The Left has been claiming that any negative comment about Ukraine is “Russian disinformation” (at least, if Republicans are saying it) but now the New York Times is saying Zelensky should negotiate with Putin? What do you suppose is their motive?

Politics, that’s what. The war in Ukraine has driven up gas prices, contributing to an inflation problem that’s making the Biden administration look bad, and we’re now less than six months away from the midterm elections, which are looking grim for the Democrats. So the New York Times wants a ceasefire in Ukraine to bail out the Democrats.

I’m thinking of a two-word phrase. The second word is “you.” And this should be Ukraine’s reply to those urging compromise with Putin.

Glenn Reynolds says, “To discourage future invasions, make this one extremely painful.” Exactly right — make ’em bleed for every inch.




 

Category: Russia, Ukraine

Comments

One Response to “Liberals Want Ukraine to Negotiate?”

  1. News of the Week (May 22nd, 2022) | The Political Hat
    May 22nd, 2022 @ 9:34 pm

    […] Liberals Want Ukraine to Negotiate? There hasn’t been much alteration of the tactical situation in Ukraine since our Monday update (“Ukraine: Donbas Battles Intensify”). The Russians have made some advances from Popasna and west of Lyman, but the battlefronts haven’t really shifted. While there were reports earlier this week that Ukraine was mounting a counteroffensive near Izyum, we haven’t seen evidence of that in terms of moving the lines on the map. […]