When the Soviet Union broke up in the 80’s, Ukraine became and independent nation and has remained so ever since, but being on the border with Russia has been challenging since Russia has continued to meddle in Ukraine to restore the old Soviet Union. This led to installing puppet governments in Ukraine in the 80’s and a popular revolt in 1990’s to overthrow them.

In 2004, Russia invaded the Crimea and a peace settlement was made to end the war which allowed Russia to keep it. Almost immediately, Russia began instigating and supplying insurgents to begin launching attacks in the Donbas (eastern Ukraine) which eventually led to the invasion in 2021 of Ukraine under false pretenses and the occupation of the Donbas.

If we stop supporting Ukraine and allow Putin to keep illegally occupied land in Eastern Ukraine, he will continue his invasion of Ukraine despite promises of peace. This has already led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and threats to all of the other Eastern European countries.

Putin’s government is not aligned with Western values of Democracy and has often violated international law. He has been the #1 threat to World peace and the #1 Cyber terrorism threat and he will likely continue to attempt to take over Ukraine if he is successful in his latest conquest, so we should continue to provide assistance to Ukraine and increase sanctions on Russia to prevent further aggression until the following conditions are met;

1. Ukrainian sovereignty to conduct their affairs without interference
2. Territorial Integrity/Russia must exit Ukraine
3. Peace treaty/Organization to prevent further hostilities by either side
4. Reparations by Russia for the restoration of Ukraine (using $300B frozen assets)
5. Additional restoration assistance from the EU/US
6. Ukraine admittance into the EU
7. UN/EU/US security guarantees to prevent future hostilities
8. Return of all prisoners of war and children/others taken to Russia
9. War crimes hearings to prevent further aggression

Ukraine has done an outstanding job defending themselves with assistance from the EU and US, so we should continue to assist them until these conditions are met.