Unless you’re spending hours a day scouring the internet in search of critical news from Ukraine, you probably missed President Volodymyr Zelensky’s essential compromise that his nation is now willing to forgo membership in NATO. That should have been the lead story on all platforms around the world. Instead, we heard Zelensky evoke Churchill by telling the British Parliament that he and all Ukrainians are prepared to die in cities and forests and everywhere else in order to repel the Russians, and we watched retired generals and colonels lecture about how inept the invaders are, and listened to ever-eager politicians claim this catastrophe is the fault of the other party, and, just as outrageous, we heard media members bluster, by omission, that they love reporting on this worsening conflict and, someplace in their souls, hope that it lasts weeks or months so they remain in the limelight.

Quit preening, all of you, and get down to what counts. Russia probably wouldn’t have attacked Ukraine if the United States and NATO hadn’t spent three decades since the fall of the Iron Curtain adding fourteen more nations, now totaling thirty, to an ever-expanding alliance supposedly founded on mutual defense. That doesn’t absolve Vladimir Putin and his henchmen of the slaughter they’ve unleashed. They weren’t under attack by anything but their delusions and lust for power. All right. That’s enough.

Cease fire, immediately, and schedule bilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine, at the foreign ministry level, and ensure that promptly leads to a face to face meeting between Zelensky and Putin who must not flatter themselves that their task is overwhelmingly complex. The necessary steps are as follows. In writing, agree that Ukraine vows never to seek NATO membership and to concede that Crimea and the Donbas belong to Russia. At the same time, Russia must promise to respect that democratic Ukraine is an organic part of free European nations. These commitments, to be confirmed by the United Nations, will be strengthened by common sense steps such as declaring, and proving, that Ukraine is an independent nation in the style of Sweden or Finland.

Further bloodshed in Ukraine would be a bilateral abomination. Continued nuclear saber rattling could be suicidal. Wise up. Then Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky can claim victory while Ukrainians return home and rebuild in peace, abetted by Russian reparations.

And one more thing. If Vladimir Putin makes any more territorial claims, anywhere, we’re going to know he’s incapable of civilized behavior.

This is a series of articles about the Russo-Ukrainian War