Russia, which has killed thousands of soldiers and civilians in its so-far largely futile invasion, reinvigorated its assault on Ukraine this week. Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the besieged city of Mariupol today, but a Ukrainian commander said his forces haven’t yet surrendered. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden announced a new weapons package for Ukraine and a system to allow Ukrainian refugees to enter the United States more quickly.
Aid alone, however, isn’t enough, writes Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, in The Atlantic: “For Ukraine to be truly free and independent, it will have to be a member of the European Union and NATO.” Russia has claimed that NATO aggression forced it to invade Ukraine, but in fact, Daalder argues, “far from NATO being the proximate cause of war, NATO’s absence enabled Putin to act.”
Our writers lay out three other ways to understand the Russian president’s motives.
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