Anne Applebaum

You know, your option is you keep fighting the war or you let the Russian win and then they destroy you and your family and they wreck your country anyway.

You know, so it's not like they have this great choice, you know, and it's not like if the war ends, then everything will be fine.

And I think that for the most part, I mean, there are variations inside each country.

I think most of the countries around Ukraine feel the same way, you know, for Poland, you know, or for the Baltic states.

You know, for Romania, if Ukraine were to lose, that wouldn't mean, oh, OK, the war's over now and we can get on and do other things.

No, that would mean it would be more expensive and they'd have to spend more money on defense and there would be more panic about where the Russians would go next.

And there would be more chaos from Ukrainian refugees and more economic disruption.

So the prospect of a Russian victory doesn't make anybody feel like that would be an improvement.

And so they, too, have this feeling that there's no choice, you know, so that they will keep fighting on.

until some better solution is reached.

And I should say, there's another weird thing about this whole U.S.-Russia negotiation, which is that they seem to be acting as if the Ukrainians and the Europeans have no agency.

I mean, actually, the Europeans are now paying for the war.

You know, there is almost no U.S.

supplies going in.

They're paying for the war.

They are supporting Ukraine economically.

You know, so actually, even if the U.S.

did bow out, they could keep going.

I mean, and acting like this negotiation is some kind of U.S.-Russian agreement that doesn't involve the people who are actually doing the fighting and who are paying for the fighting is also very weird.

I mean, it's just not how you do diplomacy.