The model for Trump’s Ukraine effort is his successful push for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Fucking what

Officials liken the current moment in Ukraine to the opening created by Israel’s September bombing of Hamas officials in Qatar, which broke an impasse.

Again, fucking what

The draft agreement calls on Ukraine to withdraw from the roughly 25 percent of Donetsk it now holds, meeting Russia’s key demand. To reassure Ukraine that it would be secure behind the ceasefire line, the U.S. draft agreement says this withdrawal zone should be demilitarized. A U.S. official told me Saturday that, in addition, the U.S. and its allies would help Ukraine build a security “wall” along the ceasefire line, using advanced technology.

And how’s that supposed to stop the Russians from repeating this fucking crisis in a few years’ time?

Zelensky now confronts the most agonizing choice of his presidency. If he says yes to giving up Donetsk, some Ukrainians will never forgive him. If he says no, this tragic war will continue. For all Zelensky’s courage, he may never have faced a more agonizing moment.

If he says ‘yes’, then the tragic war will resume at a later date.

Whether that’s something the Ukrainian people prefer to the war continuing at the present moment is their call. I don’t pretend to know the feelings in Ukraine right now, nor any internal estimates of whether they expect to be better or worse-placed to repel Russian aggression in a few years time if this goes through.

But to pretend that disarming in the face of an aggressor who has repeatedly, and with significant domestic support, attacked, annexed, and denigrated the very existence of the aggressed-upon, is anything but an invitation to a later conflict is bizarre.

Wouldn’t be hard for me, fight to the last.

This war only ends if Russia loses. If Ukraine loses any ground, or even ceases to exist, the war will continue to spread westwards.