War in Ukraine
The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion The best response to Russia’s threats is a closer relationship with Ukraine

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December 1, 2021 at 1:59 p.m. EST
A member of the Ukrainian Armed Forces takes part in military drills at a training ground near the border with Russian-annexed Crimea in Kherson region, Ukraine, on Nov. 17. (Armed Forces of Ukraine/Reuters)

Michael McFaul is the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Hoover fellow at Stanford University and a contributing columnist for The Post. Oleksiy Honcharuk, former Ukrainian prime minister under President Volodymyr Zelensky, is the Bernard and Susan Liautaud visiting fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has assembled a massive Russian military force on Ukraine’s border. We don’t know Putin’s ultimate plans; he remains his usual unpredictable self. But his recent threatening statements about Ukraine — including a claim that Ukrainians and Russians are actually one nation — have rattled leaders in Kyiv, Brussels and Washington. Since 1939, the specter of an all-out conventional war in Europe between two major militaries has never been greater.