A congressional letter that urges President Biden to negotiate directly with Vladimir Putin to end the war against Ukraine, signed by thirty liberal democrats, was withdrawn by the Congressional Progressive Caucus on 25 October 2022.
The House Democrats pointed out that the incrementally painful consequences are becoming increasingly far-reaching and are reflected not only in Ukraine but also around the world, including the spike in food and gas prices in the United States and the consequential global supply chain disruption that leads to worldwide food shortages, not to mention the danger of the potential use of nuclear weapons by Putin’s regime.
However, one day after this letter was sent to the White House, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, fearing the detrimental effect of this letter that may shake the bipartisan support for Ukraine, retracted this letter and reaffirmed their support for Ukraine, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in her remarks made in Zagreb, Croatia that “all of us here pledged to stand with Ukraine and with the Ukrainian people, recognizing their courage—in Crimea, in other territories that [Putin] has attempted to illegally annex and across the country—until victory is won. And that is what we will do until victory is won.”
Notwithstanding the reaffirmation of support for Ukraine from House Democrats, former National Security Advisor John Bolton noted that in the wake of the release of this letter, the retraction of it cannot make up for the damage it may have caused, and direct negotiation with Putin is precisely what Putin wants most. In addition, Bolton suggested that “the West still lacks a shared definition of ‘victory’ in Ukraine,” and there is simply no long-term prospect that the European Union and the United States could ever return to normal relations with Russia without a regime change. After Putin brazenly and barbarically “annexed” four Ukrainian oblasts and announced a new round of mass troop mobilization, international opposition grew dramatically with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of young Russians fleeing their country. With the hope of deterring NATO and the United States, Vladimir Putin once again egregiously threatened to use nuclear weapons and sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. In light of all the atrocities inflicted on and war crimes committed against the Ukrainian people by Vladimir Putin and his regime, no practical war-ending cease-fires or substantive peace talks can be achieved without either surrendering to Putin’s invasion or conducting a successful regime change. The options are clear but not easy.
Furthermore, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper also described the Biden administration’s handling of the Russian invasion as having a “shaky start” for taking the US military option off the table and repeatedly reassuring Vladimir Putin that the United States will not send troops in to help Ukraine. Ambassador Bolton furthered this point by illustrating that the burden of ambiguity should have been borne by Putin instead of being revealed from the onset by the United States. According to Secretary Esper, the subsequent reluctance to provide fighter jets to Ukraine is also questionable in nature. Vladimir Putin has deterred the West, but not the other way around, unfortunately.
Therefore, as Ambassador Bolton argued, while obstacles to regime change in Russia are substantial, they are not invincible. And the calculus of avoiding the war by grinding along must be abandoned. The whole regime, not just Putin, must go.