To the Editor:
Re “Ukraine Doesn’t Need All Its Territory to Defeat Putin,” by Serge Schmemann (Opinion, Dec. 28):
Mr. Schmemann is true that “true victory for Ukraine is to rise from the hell of the struggle as a powerful, unbiased, affluent and safe state, firmly planted within the West.”
The highway to that victory, nevertheless, won’t be by an armistice that freezes the invading forces’ good points in place — even when Vladimir Putin have been ready to accede to such an consequence (and that could be a very huge “if”).
A significant armistice that secures Ukraine’s well-earned sovereignty will probably be achieved provided that Ukraine offers the invading forces a collection of decisive blows that impress upon them the futility of continuous their misguided struggle.
The Ukrainian folks, their political management and their armed forces have demonstrated actually spectacular resolve. When the U.S. Congress returns this month, Democrats and Republicans should overcome their variations, act with renewed resolve and approve their now-delayed arms package deal for Ukraine.
That is the language that Mr. Putin will perceive. It can show to be the one highway to a long-lasting peace.
Geoffrey Berlin
Kyiv, Ukraine
To the Editor:
It’s plain that the struggle in Ukraine has devolved right into a stalemate. However the resolution shouldn’t be to try a long-term armistice, as Serge Schmemann argues. Doing so may imply much less bloodshed and hardship for Ukrainians within the quick time period, however any settlement that cedes Ukrainian territory to Russia woefully misreads the geopolitical local weather.
Vladimir Putin bided his time for eight years after taking Crimea in 2014 earlier than trying a full-blown invasion of Ukraine. An settlement that might improve the scale of Russia and permit him to regroup for one more potential invasion would play instantly into his arms. Moreover, it might give him the chance to assert a victory and save face domestically regardless of a lot of his invasion having been a failure.
Lastly, taking the highway of appeasement for the aim of short-term political acquire has proved again and again all through historical past to not be a viable possibility. The united entrance maintained by the West in response to the invasion of Ukraine has been efficient, and the US and its allies ought to proceed to help Ukraine till the geographic borders are again to their pre-invasion positions.
George Willmott
Memphis
To the Editor:
Re “Russia Recaptures Land as Ukraine Scales Back” (information article, Dec. 29):
It’s no thriller why Ukraine’s army effort could also be stymied in the intervening time. The army help supplied all through this struggle by U.S. and European allies has been too little, too late, and generally not the kind that Ukraine urgently wanted. So numerous Ukrainians have died in a struggle unnecessarily drawn out.
Regardless of this, Ukraine has managed to do the seemingly not possible: severely degrade the Russian army and take again half of the territory brutally seized and occupied by Russian forces since February 2022.
Now, even the continuation of any American help to Ukraine is unsure. Shamefully, Republicans in Congress have been holding support to Ukraine hostage to their calls for concerning U.S. border coverage for months. Ukraine’s very survival hangs within the steadiness.
The state of affairs in Ukraine may be rotated, nevertheless it begins with us. If Ukraine has fought effectively and valiantly with this inadequate provide of kit and ammunition, then an excellent consequence appears inside attain if we lastly give Ukraine what it must win.
Elizabeth L. Merrick
Somerville, Mass.
‘Obscene Savagery’ Towards Israeli Girls
To the Editor:
Re “‘Screams Without Words’: Sexual Violence on Oct. 7” (entrance web page, Dec. 31):
On studying the horrific “Screams With out Phrases,” I recalled what my 6-year-old grandson just lately informed our household after an older woman recited to him a litany of abuse she skilled by the hands of her father: “I don’t wish to know these items, however I don’t wish to neglect them.”
The information of the obscene savagery these Israeli girls suffered provoked on this 80-year-old reader each this sense of an innocence misplaced and the duty to recollect. As soon as I started studying, I couldn’t cease.
How may people commit such atrocities in opposition to different people? Mirit Ben Mayor, an Israeli police chief superintendent, states that she sees a mix of two ferocious forces, “the hatred for Jews and the hatred for girls.”
It’s the seeming ineradicability of those two primal forces that leaves me seething and in despair.
Barbara Gibbons
Strafford, Pa.
Non-public Fairness and Well being Care
When personal fairness companies spend money on hospitals, clinics or doctor practices, they achieve this for just one motive: to make a excessive return on funding. To do that, they will both improve income or scale back prices.
Income is elevated by making clinicians work more durable, carry out extra profitable procedures that may be justified, even when not actually wanted, and/or elevating costs. Quite a few research have proven that well being care prices go up when personal fairness companies are concerned.
They might additionally attempt to scale back prices by substituting lower-paid and fewer certified personnel: aides as an alternative of nurses.
My view was acknowledged by the title of my paper just lately printed in The American Journal of Medication: “Non-public Fairness and Medication: A Marriage Made in Hell.”
Edward P. Hoffer
Marion, Mass.
The author, a health care provider, is an affiliate professor of medication at Harvard.
Capitalism Is to Blame for Excessive Housing Prices
To the Editor:
Re “High Costs of Housing Could Hurt Biden in ’24” (Enterprise, Dec. 16):
The cost of housing in the United States has certainly risen a lot quicker than some other financial indicator. However for voters in charge President Biden (or any occupant of the White Home) for this downside shows a severe misunderstanding of our financial system and a not-too-solid grasp of civics.
Our capitalist system, entailing hypothesis and the essential rule of provide and demand, is in charge for top housing prices. So long as People keep their love affair with proudly owning single-family houses and their irrational worry of socialism, we’ll by no means have a system that gives housing for all at costs all can afford.
The inexpensive rental housing described in The New York Instances Journal’s wonderful article about rental housing in Vienna (“The Renters’ Utopia,” Might 28) will eternally stay a distant dream.
Jenny Skoble
Half Moon Bay, Calif.
Birds? Sure. Birdbrains? No.
To the Editor:
In “Culinary Cockatoos: These Pollies Want a Cracker but Only After It Gets a Soak” (Science Instances, Dec. 19), Emily Anthes factors to the dunking of items of arduous bread in water by Goffin cockatoos to melt it earlier than consuming. This habits was noticed within the Goffin Lab in Vienna, and stated to be revolutionary.
Whereas it would effectively be revolutionary, it’s not distinctive. Final winter, my spouse and I watched with fascination as blue jays took frozen bread cubes from our garden, introduced them to the fowl tub, and dunked them to thaw and soften them earlier than swallowing.
This occurred at a number of totally different instances on successive days. Birdbrains, certainly.
Ched Bradley
Rockville, Md.