We have said it before: it doesn’t matter how much money and military aid we send to Ukraine, they cannot defeat Russia absent the US and NATO sending actual ground troops to fight Russia, and fighter aircraft and pilots to gain air superiority. Now Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants just that:

U.S. announces more Ukraine aid as Zelenskyy calls for NATO to deploy troops to “force Russia into peace”

CBS News | Thursday, January 9, 2024 | 10:00 AM EST

Ramstein Air Base, Germany — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday said Donald Trump’s return to the White House would open “a new chapter” and reiterated a call for Western allies to send troops to help “force Russia to peace.” He made the plea as the Biden administration announced what will likely be its last major military aid package for Ukraine — a promise of weapons and other support worth $500 million.

Zelenskyy spoke at a meeting of about 50 allies at the American military’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the last such gathering before Trump takes office on January 20. His imminent return to the White House has cast doubt on future American support for Ukraine’s war effort, given previous favorable remarks about Russia’s authoritarian President Vladimir Putin and Trump’s vow to quickly end the war nearly three years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion.

While he’s offered no clear indication as to how he intends to achieve that, many in Ukraine and across Europe are concerned Trump could make good on the promise by withholding aid to Ukraine and pushing Zelenskyy to negotiate a truce that lets Russia maintain control over some of the vast territory is has occupied in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

“It’s clear that a new chapter starts for Europe and the entire world — just 11 days from now, a time when we have to cooperate even more, rely on one another even more, and achieve even greater results together,” said Zelenskyy, adding that he saw it “as a time of opportunities.”

The people who voted for Donald Trump were counting on, in part, the incoming President’s policy of not sending more aid to Ukraine, but Mr Trump will not be President for another eleven days, and the Biden Administration is keeping up with the Democrats’ policies. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, after the election, “President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she hoped the U.S. would continue supporting Ukraine. If not, she added, the EU was ready to take the lead.

“I’m really sure that all the other members, and hopefully also the United States, are ready to continue with the support to Ukraine,” Kallas said as she headed to the Ramstein meeting.

At this stage, she told journalists, “we shouldn’t really speculate” about future U.S. support. But she did say that it “is not in the interest of America that Russia will be the strongest force in the world.”

But she added that “the European Union is also ready to take over this leadership if the United States is not willing to do so.”

Even if Russia completely conquers Ukraine, it won’t be anywhere close to “the strongest force in the world.” The war has cost Russia so much, in money, men, and materiel, that the country will be ten years, if not more, trying to rebuild its military. If anything, the invasion of Ukraine, and how poorly it went for Russia — most analysts saw a quick, nearly walkover victory for Vladimir Putin — has shown that the Cold War visions of hundreds of crack Soviet divisions pouring through the Fulda Gap to invade western Europe were overblown fantasies, based on the Red Army’s World War II crushing of the Third Reich. Seemingly little considered was the state of the Wehrmacht following 2½ years of war in Ukraine and Russia, with the army exhausted and German factories hampered in sending supplies to their troops by British and American bombing.

The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas Hallik can spout any support she wants for Ukraine. If Mrs Hallik wants to send her Estonian troops into the Ukrainian meat grinder, that’s fine with me, But leave our country and our army out of it!