for The Hill

Russian invaders are still dealing out death and destruction in Ukraine, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has already suffered an enormous political defeat. The main question now isn’t whether Putin will win his war, but how many more Ukrainians will have to die to give him a face-saving way to stop this senseless slaughter.  

No matter how the fighting ends, the Ukrainian people have shown that they will never willingly submit to rule by Moscow. Putin’s ham-fisted attempt to bend a former Russian colony to his will has turned into Ukraine’s war of independence, with President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian, cast improbably in the role of George Washington.

Of course, Russia has by far the stronger military and evidently no moral compunctions about using it to massacre Ukrainian civilians. Can Putin inflict enough pain on Ukrainian society to wring big concessions from its government? Possibly, but so far Ukraine’s defenders are more than holding their own.

The Russian dictator is caught in his own web of historical delusions and disinformation. Few outside Russia believe his ludicrous claims that Ukraine’s democratically elected leaders are “fascists” scheming with America to prevent Ukrainians from voluntarily reuniting with Mother Russia. Yet in launching his second invasion in eight years, Putin seems to have expected that his forces would easily topple Zelensky’s government, allowing him to install a more compliant regime in Kyiv.