Continuing support for Ukraine is right thing to do

One year ago, I was bleeding out in a trench line on the Ukrainian front.

A dozen pieces of shrapnel had gone into my face, arm and leg, breaking a bone and severing an artery. I survived because of a tourniquet and the help of another volunteer infantryman from London who looked after me for several hours while I limped off of the battlefield.

None of this is particularly important, and I am no one special. What I do have, however, is a perspective on this Russia-Ukraine war that is lacking in the western conversation. You are only getting part of the truth, and I hope you can listen to me for three minutes to hear the side of the story you haven’t been hearing.

We have an incoming administration that makes wild claims of ending this war in a day, or a month. This only makes sense if we, as a nation, are about to force Ukraine into negotiations from a weak position, which is wrong from both a moral and a strategic position.

I won’t lecture the reader about ethical mandates, even though it seems very obvious to me that the correct moral position is to stand against tyranny. We should, however, understand that it is a mistake to act as if Russia is coming to the table with the stronger negotiating hand.

Both economically and strategically, Russia is failing in this war. The switch to a war-time economy has skyrocketed their inflation to an official rate of 8.5%, but data indicates that the true rate is above 20%. Their interest rate currently stands at 21%. The ruble has lost 22% of its value against other major currencies in just the last few months.

This is an economy that is crumbling before our eyes. Considering that even before the war, Russia only had a GDP comparable to that of Canada, it is completely absurd that the West cannot easily outproduce this hostile nation regarding weaponry. We can and we should, with the clear-eyed understanding that Russia cannot keep this going for very long. They simply don’t have the money.

Strategically, you probably hear regularly that Russia continues to advance. What is not necessarily made clear is that these gains are minimal, and the casualties they incur for these minor gains are unsustainable.

The Institute for the Study of War estimates that just in September and October, Russia had 80,000 casualties and lost over 800 armored vehicles, and only gained a few thousand square kilometers.

Despite raising the sign-on bonuses to life-changing amounts of money for average Russians, they are struggling to sign up new military members as fast as they lose them. The fact that they are currently bartering with North Korea for troops is an admission of their desperation for manpower to continue feeding into their meat-grinder tactics.

This war shows the Russian military for what it is, quite incapable. Honestly, nothing short of pathetic, given the man-power advantages that should currently be driving them to victory.

The final point that seems to be missing in our national discourse is the simple fact that Russia is not our friend. They have nationalized (stolen) businesses and business assets from the U.S. and the western nations, and this war has cost western businesses well over $100 billion in write-downs and lost revenue. Total western losses far exceed the amount of money that the U.S. has spent supporting Ukraine during this 1,000 days of war so far.

So why would we consider giving Putin a single kilometer of Ukrainian land? Russia’s actions are harmful to American prosperity, Putin’s economy and military are quite unimpressive and certainly should not intimidate us in the least.

Ukraine, on the other hand, would be a fantastic longterm ally to our nation, and would continue to stand as the shield for the west against the world’s most belligerent dictator.

Negotiations are a great idea, so long as we work from the correct paradigm. We have all the power here, Russia is a joke both militarily and economically, and Ukraine is the friend and ally that Russia will never be to us.

Now is the time for strength, but as Hans Petter Midttun said in the Kyiv Post, “The free world has too many Chamberlains and not even one Churchill.”

Davin Nelson is an ex-infantryman from the Bozeman area who went to Ukraine last fall and joined the International Legion of foreign volunteers fighting against the Russian military. He was injured by a Russian drone Dec. 5, 2023, and spent months in a hospital in Kyiv re-learned how to walk and eat before returning home.