President Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte have given Russian President Vladimir Putin something to help focus his mind. The July 14 announcement of a new NATO-backed weapons corridor into Ukraine, routed through European allies and structured around arms sales rather than grants, ends for now the prospect of a wholesale American abandonment of Ukraine.

Even if the new arrangement is cloaked in political deniability for Trump with his MAGA base and reinforces Trump’s shamefully transactional nature, it means that the U.S.-European alliance to support Ukraine is back on.

In their Oval Office meeting, Trump and Rutte repeatedly referred to a staggering figure: 100,000 Russian soldiers killed since January alone. It marked a rare moment of strategic clarity from Trump. He has noticed that Putin is in no rush to settle for a mere slice of eastern Ukraine, as candidate Trump clearly had expected he would. What Putin wants is a puppet in Kyiv so that Russia can control all of Ukraine.

This suggests that Putin really is serious about trying to reestablish the former Soviet Empire. This cannot be allowed. On the other hand, Putin’s regime has shown a willingness to engage in nuclear blackmail, and a cornered Kremlin may not be bluffing.

The new NATO structure for arming........

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