Relatives of Ukrainian prisoners of war attend a rally demanding the release of all POWs before any peace talks or deal with Russia in front of the United States embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 6, 2025.
A report in Time magazine says, “The U.S. decision to suspend the flow of military intelligence to Ukraine this week has aided the Russian advance along a critical part of the front.” The magazine quotes a military officer, saying, “As a result of this pause, there are hundreds of dead Ukrainians.”
If Americans knew about this — Americans in general — would they approve? Approve the decision?
• Ben Hodges, the retired U.S. Army general, who commanded our forces in Europe, says, “I am having a hard time understanding how withholding intelligence and early warning from Ukraine advances our strategic interests or helps make America great.”
• Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Russia editor, spotted something in a Russian newspaper: “Now we have a higher chance of finding the enemy’s weak spot and striking when they’re not expecting it.”
• The below is hard to take, at least for some of us:
Kremlin propagandist on Russian state TV:
“We support everything Trump is doing. We love how he is behaving”pic.twitter.com/Vd8FeIqhzD
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) March 8, 2025
• Here is our ambassador to Ukraine, a holdover from the previous administration:
Horrified to see that overnight attacks struck multiple parts of Ukraine – killing 11 and injuring 40 – including a double tap hitting first responders in Dobropillia. Recovery efforts are still underway. Civilians continue to bear the cost of this war. pic.twitter.com/3pOllPSC3K
— Ambassador Bridget A. Brink (@USAmbKyiv) March 8, 2025
It’s amazing Ambassador Brink is still in place. The stance of her government, our government, has changed completely.
• A comment from Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland: “This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians. More bombs, more aggression, more victims. Another tragic night in Ukraine.”
• From RFE/RL (our combination of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, not yet killed off): “The U.S. decision to restrict intelligence assistance to Ukraine will seriously undermine Kyiv’s ability to defend itself against Russia, but it will not spell the end of Ukraine’s war efforts, officials and analysts have said.” (Article here.)
Coming weeks will tell.
• Yaroslav Trofimov is the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal. He has written an article with the heading “Trump Is Overturning the World Order That America Built.” The article’s subheading: “As the president embraces Putin, longtime allies are starting to view the U.S. not just as unreliable but as a possible threat to their own security.”
This is the topic of the hour.
• Valerii Zaluzhnyi is Ukraine’s ambassador to London. He is also a four-star general, previously the head of his country’s armed forces. On Thursday, he took note of recent decisions and statements out of Washington. “The failure to qualify actions of Russia as an aggression is a huge challenge for the entire world, and Europe in particular,” said Zaluzhnyi. “Because we see, it’s not just the Axis of Evil and Russia trying to revise the world order. The United States is finally destroying this order.”
• For years now, the Kremlin has portrayed the Ukraine war as a proxy war between Russia and the United States. Others have said, “Hell, no: This is Ukraine trying to fend off an invasion and save itself, with the help of allies.” Talking with Sean Hannity of Fox News, the U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, declared the Ukraine war a proxy war.
But that was not the most interesting thing he said, in my judgment. Discussing the Ukrainians, he referred, negatively, to “their allies on Capitol Hill.”
Is our executive branch an ally of Ukraine?
• Ron DeSantis called Russia’s assault on Ukraine a “territorial dispute.” JD Vance dismisses the war as “ethnic rivalries.” Now we have Rubio and his “proxy war.” But the Ukrainians know what the Ukraine war is — so does Putin.
• Vice President Vance and others were upset when Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, pointed out that Putin has a history of violating pledges and treaties. In The Dispatch, Eric S. Edelman and Franklin C. Miller have performed a service: detailing these very violations, here.
Those calling themselves “realists,” as many in the Trump administration do, ought to be realistic.
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• A headline from the Financial Times: “Poland must look at acquiring nuclear weapons, says Donald Tusk.” (Article here.) I recall something that Ash Carter told me, in a podcast. He was our secretary of defense from 2015 to 2017, and a physicist with long experience in the nuclear realm.
There are nine nuclear states in the world — only nine. Why so few, given that this is 1940s technology? One reason, Carter emphasized to me, is that the United States has provided a kind of umbrella. Should we ever furl that umbrella, the result could be nuclear proliferation.
This is something to think about, as the U.S. dramatically changes its foreign policy.
• On a related note, we have been hearing a lot about peace. “Peace” is on the lips of President Trump, his officials, and their supporters. I once wrote a book called “Peace, They Say.” When people talk about peace — be very careful about what they mean.
Russian occupation? Nuclear proliferation? And so on and so forth. Wisdom, and realism, are of supreme necessity.
• I think of Red Buttons and other comedians of yore. Their joke went something like this: “Why is everyone so down on Adolf Hitler? All he wanted was peace: a piece of Czechoslovakia, a piece of Poland . . .”
• There is a section on Lech Wałęsa in Peace, They Say (which is a history of the Nobel Peace Prize). He has been in the news lately. An Associated Press report begins,
Poland’s democracy hero Lech Wałęsa and dozens of other former political prisoners in Poland have written a letter to President Donald Trump, telling him that his treatment of Ukraine’s president in the Oval Office last week filled them “with horror and distaste.”
Trump, Vance, and the rest have slammed Zelensky and the Ukrainians as insufficiently grateful for American support. Wałęsa and his confrères said, “Gratitude is due the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed blood in defense of the values of the Free World. They are the ones who have been dying on the front lines.”
• For three years now, many Americans have sneered at Zelensky’s clothes. But as I noted last week, the king of England doesn’t mind. Neither does the king of Belgium, apparently:
I am grateful to His Majesty King Philippe of the Belgians for the audience.
We discussed Belgium’s involvement in preparing the first steps toward ending the war. I look forward to His Majesty’s support in facilitating the return of Ukrainian children illegally deported and… pic.twitter.com/l5BkmKKWdd
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 6, 2025
The truth is, no one gives a darn about Zelensky’s attire. Those who sneer at him, hate him regardless. They would hate him if he wore a top hat and tails. Clothing has nothing to do with it.
• A report from Reuters:
U.S. president Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would soon decide whether to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia . . .
Such a move would be a stunning reversal of the welcome Ukrainians received under President Joe Biden’s administration and potentially put them on a fast-track to deportation.
• What accounts for the widespread disdain in our country of the Ukrainians and their struggle? Very interesting, and very painful, is an article by Kate Tsurkan in the Kyiv Independent: “How U.S. right-wing podcasters shape pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine sentiments” (here). I know many people under that influence, including some of my nearest and dearest. Nothing can shake them.
• Charles Moore is a venerable conservative writer in England (a leading columnist and editor, the authorized biographer of Mrs. Thatcher). Appearing on GB News last week, he said that Trump “accused Zelensky of wanting to start World War III, but it’s Ukraine that got invaded by a nuclear power.”
He also said that Trump “is traducing a free country which has been invaded by a tyrant, and the peace of Europe, and indeed of the world, depends on tyrants’ not being able to invade free countries.”
• If the United States is neutral or indifferent as regards Ukraine, Ukraine will have a hard time surviving, I think. But if the U.S. is hostile — will Ukraine have any chance at all?
• On Monday, March 3, the Metropolitan Opera opened its evening with the playing of the Ukrainian national anthem. Many people — including many I know — would have puked at this. Others of us find such gestures to be fitting and moving, particularly as our government does an about-face.
I wrote an essay on this general subject — solidarity, symbols — last year, here.
Our country is split: Many relish the government’s new approach to Ukraine, and to Moscow. Others of us feel, frankly, revulsion and shame.