In their March 10 Tuesday Opinion essay, “Putin is failing. These charts prove it.,” Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan described Ukraine’s remarkable resilience and wartime innovation. They also noted that the Trump administration’s shambolic approach to the war is perpetuating it. Indeed, Russia’s behavior since the collapse of the Soviet Union — in the occupied regions of Georgia or Moldova, no less than in Ukraine since 2014 — shows that it will respect no “compromise” to end to the conflict. Kagan and Kagan concluded, “The way to end this war is not to rescue Putin from a failing campaign, but to help Ukraine make it fail faster.”
But they did not complete the thought. The only way to stop Putin is to put boots on the ground. Not troops from smaller NATO states or nonaligned countries. American boots on the ground. Not to patrol a wobbly ceasefire line that cedes to the Kremlin what Kagan and Kagan say is “19.4 percent of Ukrainian territory” now occupied by Russian forces. U.S. troops need to push the Russians out of Ukraine and restore the 1991 borders. Later, a real referendum can be organized to enable the people of Crimea, having recently experienced both, to say whether they prefer to live under Russian or Ukrainian rule, or as an autonomous territory of one or the other.
Much time and political energy has been diverted into debate about Russian assets and sanctions regimes. But Putin is not bothered by further deterioration of the Russian people’s living conditions. Those in Congress who believe Ukraine’s cause is just should introduce an Authorization for the Use of Military Force. That would get Putin’s attention.
Thomas O. Melia, Millersville, Maryland
The writer, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Democracy and Civil Society, is the chairman of the board of the Free Russia Foundation.
I recently returned from my eighth mission to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. As a son of Finland, I stand with Ukraine because I remember what Moscow did in the Winter War in 1939. Like Ukrainians today, the Finns were another David against this same Goliath. We are different chapters in the same story.
We remember the Holodomor of 1932 and 1933. Never again will a Russian dictator slaughter millions of Ukrainians.
We remember the Holocaust in Ukraine. Never Again will a dictator eliminate 1 million or more Ukrainian Jewish people.
A new day for Russia is possible. The residents of Moscow need to rise up, just like on Bloody Sunday in 1905 and in the October Revolution in 1917. Yes, the Bolsheviks lost their way. But we know there are millions who suffer in silence out of fear of going to the gulag.
Centuries of oppression and exploitation, under the crown and then the Politburo, forged Russian culture, and a people whose survival is a triumph of the human spirit. When Russians rise up and take this war criminal to The Hague, I promise to bring the vodka and herring for a picnic outside the Hermitage. St. Petersburg, which should become Russia’s capital again, is only a ferry ride away from my relatives in Helsinki. One day, St. Petersburg and Kyiv could even become sister cities.
Howard Dotson, Minneapolis
Right on covid, for the wrong reasons
The March 12 front-page article “Federal panel drops plan to revisit covid vaccines” noted that “Republicans warn that any more changes to vaccine policy could damage the party in the midterms.” This is exactly why politics in this country is corrupted. Health care policy should be based on protecting the public and not on maintaining a seat in Congress.
David Sandler, Columbia
Why we won the tariffs case
Jason Willick’s Oct. 27 op-ed, “This strategic blunder could swing the Supreme Court tariffs case,” suggested that Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public-interest law firm that represented the prevailing parties in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump before the Supreme Court, had blundered by selecting Neal K. Katyal to argue on behalf of our clients. The op-ed speculated that the outcome might hinge not on constitutional text or statutory limits, but on the perceived partisan affiliations of the advocate standing at the lectern. But now that a decision has come down in this historically important case, we feel it’s important to set the record straight.
From the outset, Liberty Justice Center’s challenge to the administration’s tariff regime was rooted in a straightforward constitutional principle. Article I vests Congress — not the president — with the power to levy taxes and duties. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not grant tariff authority. That argument prevailed because it was correct.
We never questioned the court’s independence, and our plaintiffs were not engaged in partisan theater. The case was a constitutional dispute over separation of powers — one that attracted advocates from across the ideological spectrum precisely because the issue transcended politics.
Liberty Justice Center assembled an exceptional team based on advocacy skill, preparation and the needs of the case.
The judiciary’s legitimacy depends on the public understanding that cases are decided on law, not on which former administration a lawyer once served. Emergency powers cannot be stretched beyond their limits to aggregate authority the executive does not possess. That was the argument. That was the law. And that is why we prevailed.
Sara Albrecht, Chicago
The writer is the chairman of the Liberty Justice Center.
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