Former President Joe Biden often declared during his administration that America and the world were “at an inflection point.” Putting aside his failings at coping with the inflection points in Afghanistan and Ukraine during his own administration, he would be right in saying we are at such a historic impasse now.

President Trump has just shocked most of the world — and generated exuberance in the Kremlin — by stunningly accusing Ukraine of starting the war with Russia. Trump declared that Ukraine is responsible for the massive Russia-inflicted death and destruction in its own country by refusing to “make a deal” with Vladimir Putin — that is, by not capitulating to Putin's ultimatum that Ukraine surrender its independence and territorial sovereignty, cease to exist as an independent nation, and accept absorption into a restored Russian and neo-Soviet Empire.

Never mind that under that “peaceful” scenario, the vast majority of the population that still thinks of itself as Ukrainian would face the gruesome prospect already experienced by hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens trapped in Russian-occupied parts of the country: repression, brainwashing, imprisonment, rape, torture, and execution.

It is not for nothing that the International Criminal Court has accused Putin and his forces of

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