A thousand days into Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine, we’re standing at a precarious crossroads. With Joe Biden in his final weeks in office, he’s rolled the dice by giving Ukraine the green light to hit military targets inside Russia with U.S.-made missiles. It’s a bold move, one that could shake up the battlefield and give Ukraine a stronger position heading into negotiations—but not everyone sees it that way. Trump’s allies are calling it reckless, and there’s fear that come January, Trump might undo all of this in favour of a deal that flatters Putin at Ukraine’s expense.

Meanwhile, Putin has responded by doubling down on nuclear brinkmanship, rewriting his rules to lower the bar for launching nukes. He’s playing up the victim card, all while he continues to rain destruction on Ukrainian cities. It’s the ultimate hypocrisy: a bully whining about a punch back after almost three years of unprovoked aggression. But as history shows, appeasing bullies like Putin never works, and his admirer-in-chief, Trump, doesn’t inspire confidence in his promises to “end the war.”

The next 100 days aren’t just about Ukraine—they’re about the soul of the democratic world (I know, very Biden sounding, which is fitting giving the intent of his successor.) If Ukraine’s resistance is bargained away, it sends a chilling message to every authoritarian dreaming of territorial conquest. The stakes couldn’t be higher, and the world is watching nervously to see how this all unfolds.

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