In Ukraine, summer is ending amid even more sorrow than earlier seasons have yielded since February 2022. The Russians are battering their way deeper into its territory and Ukrainians are weary. More than 6 million have quit for a new life abroad, including some of the brightest and best educated and the young desperate to escape conscription.
Russian President Vladimir Putin can claim a substantial achievement. His assaults have worn down the will, the magnificent defiance, of the Ukrainian people. Almost all now recognize, as they did not a year ago, that they will be obliged to cede the east of their country to win any hope of peace.
This is monstrously unjust because Putin has no rightful claim upon a yard of Ukraine. But it is where we are. Everything now hinges on finding levers sufficiently powerful to oblige the Russians to make terms to which they will adhere for longer than it takes to procure the lifting of Western economic sanctions. This is not easy.
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