On a long road trip from the Moldovan frontier through Odesa to Kyiv, Kharkiv and back, I heard overwhelmingly that Ukrainians are determined to fight on. That isn鈥檛 always because they love President Volodymyr Zelensky, trust their generals, or see a path to victory. The bottom line in Ukraine is that they must keep fighting because gives them no choice.
Mr. Putin isn鈥檛 looking for compromise, they say. It isn鈥檛 about moving the border posts a few miles to the west. He believes he needs all or almost all of Ukraine, and he won鈥檛 stop until he gets it.
Worse, they say, Mr. Putin doesn鈥檛 only want to raise the Russian flag over the country and redistribute its wealth to his favored oligarchs. He wants to crush Ukrainian nationality, marginalize the language and culture, impose totalitarian rule over the country, and enlist Ukraine in his project of rebuilding the Russian Empire.