It is becoming increasingly difficult for Russians — both Russia’s elites and ordinary citizens — to ignore the growing disaster that has been created by more than four years of Vladimir Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine.
Today, a new axis of autocrats is trying to reshape the world order and sideline the United States in international affairs.
From June 27 - July 5, 2025, the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) supported a high-level delegation to Ukraine. The bipartisan group—including senior experts from the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—traveled to Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, and Warsaw. Herman Pirchner, AFPC President, led the 9-person delegation.
As the war in Ukraine heads toward its third anniversary, the question on the minds of many Americans is, why do the Ukrainians keep fighting? The conventional wisdom argues that after nearly three years of killing, the war must end — something possible only through the surrender of Ukrainian land occupied by Russian forces. Yet polls consistently find that nearly 70% of Ukrainians oppose ceding land for peace. Why? Because giving up land means surrendering to life under Russian occupation. Ukrainians know from history what that means; to prevent it, they are willing to endure the deaths of thousands more of their soldiers and the destruction of many of their cities and towns.