![]() Ukraine is now indispensable to the defense of the West and the European security order laid down after World War II. Whatever objections there may have been in the past to welcoming Ukraine as a full-fledged ally, this war ought to have dispelled them. When the leaders of NATO’s member states convene for their annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Tuesday, admitting Ukraine as a member should be the first item on the agenda. By contrast, no nation sheltered under the Atlantic Alliance umbrella has ever been menaced by Russian violence. Most murderous of all has been Russia’s savage onslaught against Ukraine, which began in 2014 with the conquest of Crimea and exploded in February 2022 into a full-scale invasion aimed at overthrowing the pro-Western government of Volodymyr Zelensky.Īll the countries attacked by Russia in the years since World War II have this in common: None was a member of NATO at the time of Moscow’s aggression. Russia fomented a war against Georgia in 2008, illegally seizing the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 1991, Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers assaulted crowds of civilians defending the independence of Lithuania. ![]() Twelve years later the Soviet Union attacked Czechoslovakia, putting a brutal end to the “Prague Spring” and its liberal reforms. In 1956, Moscow sent tanks and troops into Hungary, killing thousands of protesters as it crushed an anti-Communist uprising.
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