Opinion | Ukraine Is Europes War Now

On Friday, after a grim-faced Volodymyr Zelensky departed the White House, President Trump wrote on social media that the Ukrainian leader could “come back when he is ready for Peace.”Peace is a powerful word, but to grasp its true meaning one has to look at the context in which it is uttered.On the same day that Mr.

Trump spoke of the importance of peace and sent Mr.Zelensky home to think about it, Russia launched more than 150 attack drones on Ukrainian cities.

While Mr.Trump emphasizes that he is making great progress with President Vladimir Putin of Russia toward peace, the latter has only increased his strikes since the inauguration.On Sunday, European leaders, Secretary General Mark Rutte of NATO and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada gathered in London at the invitation of Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, and pledged to bolster support for Ukraine and develop a plan to end the war that could win the support of Mr.

Trump.Europeans understand, as the Trump administration appears not to, that Ukraine wants a peace deal — it just doesn’t want to end up destroyed by the peace terms.The obsession of Mr.

Putin is all of Ukraine, nothing less.It is neither NATO nor a strip of Ukrainian land.

If Ukraine is still independent and armed by the end of negotiations, Mr.Putin will not see that as the end.

He will settle for a piece of Ukraine today only to come for the whole tomorrow.If it were about NATO, then Mr.Putin would not have so meekly accepted Sweden and Finland’s accession in 2023.

Today, NATO’s frontier is closer to St.Petersburg than Ukraine’s border is to Moscow.Nor is the point to retain the roughly 20 percent of territory that Russia has managed to wrest from Ukraine so far in this war.

Mr.Putin cannot tolerate an independent Ukraine because for the last 300 years almost none of his predecessors could.

And because if Ukraine is successful as a democratic, Western democracy, it will pose a direct threat to the Russian peop...