OPINION:
In 2022, we began providing prostheses for Ukrainian soldier amputees. We started in the United States and now offer the service in Kyiv too.
We’ve seen the mangled bodies of some of the 115,000 Ukrainian amputees, including a soldier who had both arms amputated while he was a Wagner Group prisoner of war and another who had an arm amputated while he was a Russian prisoner of war.
Two of those we have seen are former U.S. Marines who lost limbs fighting for Ukraine. Three of our all-Ukrainian team are soldiers for whom we provided prostheses. They often care for patients in our building’s bomb shelter during raids. Talk about heroism.
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But Ukrainians are tired of just being called heroic; they need help. Some 125,000 to 150,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, with total casualties of 525,000 to 625,000. About 5.9 million Ukrainians are refugees, primarily in Germany and Poland.
The 10-year recovery cost for Ukraine so far is about $588 billion. Besides helping Ukraine for humanitarian reasons, we should do it out of self-interest. We need stability in Europe. It’s why we fought both world wars and the Cold War.
The European Union and the U.S. have the largest trade and investment relationships in the world and Americans’ standard of living depends partly on it.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin wants to destabilize Europe, weakening American international relationships. The Ukraine war increases the price of our oil, diesel fuel, and natural gas, which causes higher food prices, disrupts global supply chains and increases the cost of materials used in cars and electronics.
The war’s inflation leads to higher interest rates, which means higher mortgage rates and car loans.
Europe has already given Ukraine more aid than the U.S. and hosts roughly 5.3 million Ukrainian refugees to America’s approximately 295,000.
We must accelerate the licensing of Patriot air-defense technology to Ukraine and squeeze Russia economically by enforcing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026. This legislation would target Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers.
We must also pressure China and India to reduce their buying of Russian oil, which gives Russia the money to fund its war.
MIKE CORCORAN
BILL ENDICOTT
Bethesda, Maryland
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