Donald Trump continues to put pressure on Ukraine to accept his administration’s peace proposal, despite how the plan favors Russia. On Washington Week With The Atlantic, panelists joined to discuss what this may suggest about the administration’s shifting international priorities, and more.
If the Ukrainians were to stop fighting today, “they don’t have any kind of security guarantee,” Anne Applebaum, a staff writer at The Atlantic, explained last night. Without that, “their country is unviable—because who will want to live there or invest there if they know that the war is going to start, you know, next year or next month or in six months?” Ukraine needs a reason to believe that the war with Russia is “really, really over,” she argued.
“The only way you achieve that is to put pressure not on Ukraine, but on Russia,” Applebaum said. “It’s almost as if the Trump administration doesn’t want to admit, or can’t understand, that the war only ends when the pressure is put on Russia.” This is “the most obvious solution to the problem, and it’s the one they just won’t take,” she noted.
Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to discuss this and more: Anne Applebaum, a staff writer at The Atlantic; Susan Glasser, a staff writer at The New Yorker; Amna Nawaz, a co-anchor at PBS News Hour; and Vivian Salama, a staff writer at The Atlantic.
Watch the full episode here.
