News of Victoria Roshchyna’s brutal death at the hands of Russian captors shocked Ukraine and the world last week. Her body was returned mutilated — eyes gouged out, brain removed — bearing evidence of unspeakable brutality. It wasn’t an accident of war. It was a signature of it. This is what Russia does — and has done since its 2014 invasion of Ukraine.
A day after the world discovered what had happened to Roshchyna, the White House celebrated a long-awaited minerals deal signed with Kyiv. As diplomacy took center stage in Washington, the killing on the ground continued, unrelenting and unpunished.
This disconnect between gestures in D.C. and violence in Ukraine speaks to a deeper problem: the U.S. still treats Russia’s criminal war of choice like a policy dilemma to be managed, not a strategic threat to be dealt with decisively before it spreads further.
Since President Donald Trump took office, the policy of carrots for the victim and sticks for the aggressor has morphed into a cold shoulder for Ukraine and olive branches for Russia. The Kremlin has torched every one of them, treating overtures from the White House not as goodwill to reciprocate but as weakness to exploit.
In March, Ukrainian civilian casualties surged by 50% compared to February and by 70% compared to March 2024. A missile strike on a playground in April killed 18 people, including nine children. The UN now reports near-daily attacks on civilian areas. This isn’t peacemaking — it’s sadism in slow motion.
For eleven years since Russia first invaded, successive U.S. Administrations have failed to grasp that there is no “conflict” in Ukraine — no tension between two sides with competing claims. Such framing is deeply flawed. Just as there wasn’t a “conflict” in Poland in 1939 when the Nazis invaded from the west and the Soviets from the east. Poland didn’t need mediation between Warsaw and Berlin. It required help driving out the invaders.
Eighty years ago, the world learned — and then promptly forgot — a hard lesson: Unchecked aggression only grows stronger with time. America tried to stay out of the war. At the time, that seemed wise, even noble. But history proved otherwise: Wishing for peace isn’t enough. The war came to Europe first, and eventually reached American shores.
Unchecked aggression only grows stronger with time.
Not our war, some say. Quite right — it’s Russia’s war: soaked in the blood of innocents, justified by lies, and led by a venal thug. But Ukraine’s dogged refusal to surrender reminds us what a fight for freedom actually looks like. And when we choose comfort over courage, don’t be surprised when the revanchist dictators come knocking closer to home.
The United States can and must stop signaling weakness and start acting with resolve — arming Ukraine, isolating Moscow, and demanding that war criminals be held accountable. Then it can once again claim to be the leader of the free world. But instead, Washington is taking the bait, sending envoys to shake hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and falling for the same Soviet-era tactics it spent half a century trying to contain.
Meanwhile, Moscow is drawing America’s rivals and enemies into its criminal war effort. It began with artillery from Pyongyang. Now, thousands of North Korean troops have been spotted in Russian trenches. Iranian drones continue to rain on Ukrainian cities. Chinese nationals have been captured on the battlefield, fighting for Moscow. Alliances are being forged, and every one of them pulls America’s adversaries deeper into a war Russia claims to want to end. If this isn’t a provocation, what is?
In the United States, we judge new presidents by what they accomplish in their first 100 days. In Russia, the yardstick is a little different: how much a newly minted despot can destroy in his first twenty years. Given the dismal standards set by tsars and commissars, Putin is a resounding mediocrity, yet a danger to the world.
Instead of pressuring the aggressor, Washington is threatening to walk away from negotiations altogether. What kind of ultimatum is that? Ukraine wants peace more than we will ever know. It agreed to an unconditional ceasefire within 24 hours and accepted the minerals deal. All Ukraine wants is to be left in peace, not in pieces.
Russia, meanwhile, has spent nearly two months dodging that same unconditional truce that the White House put on the table. Even an agreement that heavily favors Russia, while offering Ukraine little, has been met with silence and bad faith.
Moscow’s objectives remain unchanged: domination through violence, imperial expansion, and erasure of Ukraine. And yet the White House treats Ukraine as an unreliable partner. This is self-sabotage wrapped with a bow as diplomacy is a flashing signal of American weakness for the whole world to see.
The minerals deal was originally conceived as a mechanism to “collect” repayment for aid, and looked more like a shakedown than a strategic partnership. The final version, stripped of its worst elements, may have merit as a long-term investment. But its timing and prominence, set against fresh atrocities and America’s ceasefire efforts rejected by Russia, make it more of a distraction than a deterrent.
We are not ending a war — we are indulging a war criminal. And the longer we pretend this is a conflict to be negotiated, rather than a criminal aggression to be terminated, the more respect — and security — we will lose.
Daria Shulzhenko
