It's Time to Stop the Bleeding in Ukraine

By John Byrnes, Strategic Director at Concerned Veterans for America

Ukrainian and Russian soldiers are bleeding and dying on battlefields in eastern Ukraine right now.

On the night of October 25, 2004, I experienced the most intense combat situation I have ever lived through. 

While returning to our Forward Operating Base (FOB) in the Sunni Triangle, insurgents ambushed our platoon’s convoy. Out of nowhere, an IED exploded, with a sound like the world splitting in half and crashing back together.

We reacted with well-rehearsed battle drills.  As I made my way to perform first aid on a comrade who was hit, a second 155 mm artillery shell exploded, wire-detonated by the same insurgents. As I began treating the soldier, who was bleeding profusely and screaming in pain, a third IED exploded.

These were some of the most terrifying minutes in my life. My patient lived, but two days later another IED attack killed a different team member. A few months earlier, I saw the same kind of carnage when treating a civilian. He’d been shot in one lung and was aspirating blood through the wound. Iraqi insurgents took shots at us while we treated him.

More than 20 years later, I can still recall the sounds, the smells, the blood, the screams, and the stress driven adrenaline surges. There were more than a few of these experiences during my time in Iraq. But they were short moments lasting only a few, albeit intense, minutes.

Such experiences happen, magnified by the hundreds and thousands, in Ukraine on a daily basis, as they have been happening since 2022. Russia and Ukraine are throwing an entire generation into a bloody meat-grinding stalemate. Military casualties have topped one million, and millions more Ukrainian civilians suffer. That’s millions of moments of sheer terror. For those who survive, the hidden wounds will last for years, or even lifetimes.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion was malicious and evil, and the Ukrainians have mounted a surprisingly stubborn and effective defense. Russia continues to have important military advantages in numbers, both of equipment and personnel.

While Ukraine has been relatively successful at halting them in the east, they likely cannot retake that territory even with continued Western military and financial aid. European and American ability to continue aid is limited. U.S. military stocks are being used faster than they can be replaced, and many of those are important to maintaining deterrence elsewhere. Likewise, financial assistance to Ukraine saps resources that can be used elsewhere.

Settling for less than prewar borders is understandably unpalatable to Ukrainians. U.S.-led diplomacy, though, must embrace realism. Voices in the U.S. and in Europe who resist a negotiated peace harp on Russia’s potential to seize territory from European NATO members. This assumes that Russia, fought to a standstill by a smaller, weaker Ukraine, has the appetite to take on a richer and stronger NATO. Meanwhile, the bleeding, the screaming, and death go on in eastern Ukraine.

There is a path to ending the carnage. Since taking office, President Trump has worked to bring both governments to the table to negotiate, but that is just the beginning.

Russia and Ukraine must understand the security dilemma each face. Ukraine has a larger, more powerful, and aggressive neighbor in Russia. And Russia has a strategic fear, based on historical experience, of powerful neighbors to their west.

Such understanding will only be the beginning of the bargaining. If Russia can acknowledge Ukraine’s need for security, and Ukraine can accept that Russia fears and will not allow NATO expansion into Ukraine, there is a starting position. 

An armed but neutral Ukraine best fits the strategic needs of both nations.

If Ukraine is willing to forego future membership in NATO, there is still a path toward enduring security. Ukraine has proven itself resilient enough to make a total Russian conquest nearly impossible. If allowed to maintain a capable military as a deterrent, and to trade with both eastern and western neighbors, Ukraine will have security.

Russia should allow an armed neutrality for Ukraine, tied to assurances that NATO will not expand to include Ukraine.

The devil will be in the details. The future disposition of seized and contested territory will present a difficult negotiating point. But ending the lethal engagements that destroy lives, limbs, and sanity daily should motivate all parties to negotiate.

President Trump is right to claim that ending combat and ending the war is imperative.

Further, Europe must continue to take the lead in its own security. The war in Ukraine has been tragic but it has also exposed the weaknesses of Russia’s conventional military forces.  Europe has the resources to defend against those forces and its military capacity should reflect that – without continuing the current dominant role of the U.S. in European security. Ending the war will allow both the U.S. and Europe to rebuild stockpiles of key munitions for their own defense, and allow the U.S. to focus on other, more important strategic threats. 

When treating a wounded soldier, one of the most important steps is to stop the bleeding.  It’s time to stop the bleeding in Ukraine.