10 hours Ago
As “NATO’s home in North America,” Hampton Roads has a vested interest in the long-term stability of the western-based international order. Our region is intertwined with an alliance that defeated the Soviet Union, kept the peace in Europe and, since 2022, served as a bulwark against the imperial aspirations of Russian President Vladimir Putin.The Trump administration plans to cast that all aside by abandoning Ukraine, breaking with our allies and capitulating to Putin’s criminality.
The White House believes a friendlier posture toward Russia can lessen that country’s willingness to work with Iran, China, North Korea and other nations hostile to the United States.But siding with Putin over our allies sends an unmistakable message, both at home and abroad, that the United States no longer defends freedom when it comes under attack.Three years ago, Russian forces poured over the border into Ukraine, an unprovoked and unjustified assault against a sovereign nation that created the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II.
Putin has plainly stated his determination to rebuild the Russian empire and views Ukraine’s overtures to the west as a threat to his ambitions. The 2014 invasion of the Crimean peninsula — Ukrainian territory — backed those aspirations with force and a tepid response from the United States and the international community only served to embolden him.Contrary to what President Donald Trump has said, the 2022 invasion was a Russian action for which Ukraine bears no responsibility.
Our obligations to defend that country were spelled out in a 1994 agreement in which Ukraine agreed to relinquish nuclear weapons it possessed following the Soviet Union’s dissolution in exchange for security assistance in the event of an invasion.That invasion came and, under President Joe Biden, America honored its promises. As of January, the United States has appropriated $183 billion for the war.
Of that, $65.9 billion has been direct military assistance to Ukraine and $68 billion has gone to domestic defense contractors, including those in Virginia.Norfolk is home to the only NATO facility in North America, a point of regional pride, and our sizable military population gives Hampton Roads ample reason to defend an alliance that has served our nation well for 70 years.
The multilateral pact helped western nations stand resolute during the Cold War and usher in a period of peace and cooperation following the collapse of the Soviet empire.More than that, though, the NATO pact and our relationship with other western nations made the United States prosperous and secure. It enabled us to help Ukraine halt Putin’s war of conquest without risking the lives of U.
S. service members, thousands of whom live here in Hampton Roads.Those ties are now deteriorating.
Trump has already undermined the U.S. position by opening negotiations with Russia that exclude Ukraine.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told an audience in Belgium this month that Ukraine should expect to concede territory to the invaders and ruled out the possibility of NATO membership; both are Putin demands. And Trump has pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to surrender Ukraine’s mineral rights to the United States, a move to plunder that country’s resources.Ukrainians have endured unfathomable hardship since the invasion.
Russian forces have leveled cities without regard to civilian life. They have lobbed missiles indiscriminately toward residential buildings, population centers and critical infrastructure. And Ukraine says some 20,000 children have been abducted and taken to Russia, an international crime of the highest order.
These are the people Trump would have us abandon, people who have held back the Russian military for three years, people who have huddled in bomb shelters or been forced to flee their homes, people whose children have been absconded to another country.Trump’s kowtowing to Putin, an international pariah, is antithetical to everything this country has fought for since the end of World War II. If this is how the United States honors its international agreements, then our words are empty and worthless.
If this is how we treat our friends, we shouldn’t be surprised when they turn their backs on us..
