In mid-January, with doubts about congressional Republicans’ support for Kyiv rising, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told ABC News, “Even if we run out of weapons, we will fight with shovels.” His words recalled the early days of the 2022 Russian invasion, when ordinary Ukrainians prepared Molotov cocktails to meet the foe.

Ukrainians see this war as existential. If they lose, their Ukraine is gone. But shovels and Molotov cocktails would not hold the Russian army for long. If Ukraine falls because Republicans block U.S. assistance, they will bear a grotesque responsibility — and will have put the United States and American soldiers in greater jeopardy.

Vladimir Putin’s imperialist desire to regain what he has called “historical” Russian land largely motivates the war. Rejecting a Ukrainian peace plan, he said, “This is an attempt to encourage us to abandon the conquests [emphasis added] we have made over the past one-and-a-half years.”

Former President Dmitry Medvedev more bluntly stated that Ukraine, supposedly located on historical Russian territory, should not exist. He opined that Ukrainians would “understand that life in one large common state [with Russia],........

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