Once again, Ukraine is teaching lessons on how to deal with aggression. Its sudden incursion into Russia, temporarily occupying 400 square miles of Russian territory, has turned the tables on Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

From its heroic stand blocking Russia’s lightning seizure of Kiev in 2022 to its daring sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship and other vessels of the fleet, to its dramatic recapture last year of swathes of Russian-occupied territory, Ukraine has stood tall when others more safely situated have faltered. With this brilliant counter-invasion of Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian military and people have demonstrated again their remarkable courage, skill and ingenuity in defending their homeland and their independent national identity.

Ukraine’s security partners, led by the U.S., have often resigned themselves to Russian aggresion, and deemed it not worth resisting. Despite NATO’s promise of eventual membership for Georgia and Ukraine, and a specific security guarantee to Ukraine in 1994, the Bush-Cheney administration did nothing when Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, and the Obama-Biden administration demurred when Russia seized Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014.

In February 2022, Russia and China announced their mutual support for each other’s aggressive intentions against their neighbors — Putin’s revanchism in Eastern Europe and Xi Jinping’s fabricated claim on Taiwan.........

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