Trump needs to understand what the war in Ukraine is really about | Kenneth Roth

It's not about Nato or the Soviet Union. It's about democracy

It may be difficult for a real-estate mogul like Donald Trump to recognize, but Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine is not about slices of war-torn land in eastern Ukraine. It is about Ukraine's democracy. Putin fears that the Russian people will see that democracy as an enticing alternative to his stultifying autocratic rule. Trump is unlikely to secure a peace deal unless he acts on that reality and changes the cost-benefit analysis behind Putin's continuing war.

Much of the public analysis of the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, and the Washington collection of European leaders protecting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from the temperamental Trump, has been replete with red-herring issues. For example, Putin did not invade Ukraine because of feared Nato expansion. The unanimous consent of all Nato members required to admit Ukraine is nowhere on the horizon, especially since article 5 of the Nato treaty would require all Nato members to defend Ukraine from the ongoing Russian incursion.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs. His new book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, was published by Knopf and Allen Lane