At this point, the focus in Ukraine should be on saving lives

Forever talking about events related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol or former President Donald Trump makes Democrats and the liberal media giddy, but we have very serious matters before us. The nation with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons is threatening to use them.

Please, Democrats and liberal media, get a grip and do your job to protect America. One way is to challenge the Biden administration with serious and penetrating questions.

To allow the Biden administration to boast that it has the support of the world community is more than disingenuous; it is simply not true.

Yes, we have 40 nations on board, but the bulk of those nations are part of the European Union. They are supposed to be behind our efforts, plus they have a direct stake in the game.

The largest countries in the world — India and China — are either ambivalent or are even supporting Russia. Each has over a billion people, and one (India) is the largest democracy in the world. The other (China) has one of the largest economies in the world. Besides Europe, most of the other continents are at best neutral.

This is Ukraine’s problem with Russia. It is not the first time we have seen this movie. The U.S. cannot supplant Ukraine in the battle. We must learn the lessons of Vietnam and Korea — a loss and a tie respectively — and the mess that was Afghanistan.

The No. 1 priority should be saving Ukrainian lives. Land can be won and lost, over and over again. History can show you this as Turkey once controlled Ukraine. It will take hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars to rebuild Ukraine. That dollar amount only grows as the war continues. And lives cannot be replaced.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should realize this. There is always another day and another way to fight.

Afghanistan proved that with the Russians and Vietnam proved that with the United States. Both Afghanistan and Vietnam were victorious over time. Time is on the side of Ukraine as well.

Fighting Russia in the current manner only plays into Russia’s hands and could result in the further loss of land and definitely the senseless loss of tens of thousands of Ukrainians. Millions of Ukrainians have already fled their country.

There must be multiple solutions to this conflict. Because of past mistakes, having Ukraine look like the Ukraine of May 1, 2021, is not one of the solutions. The first goal is for Russia to withdraw. Ukraine has not envisioned what an acceptable solution would be.

In war when you lose control of a territory you have lost that territory. Basic fact. One can come back later to attempt to recapture territory, but one must accept reality. The Ukrainians should be attempting to stop the loss of territory, which they are struggling to do. Their desire to beat the Russians should at this point be a secondary objective.

The Biden administration should accept misplaced strategies and stop continuing to double and triple down on sanctions. They will take months to bite and could lead to a boomeranglike consequence to the free world, taking us into the deep unknown. Why?

At this point stopping the Russian land grab with a peace accord seems like a victory. We need to give Zelenskyy a timeframe for turning the war around. If he fails to do so, the U.S. and EU must force a peace agreement with Russia. Ironically, the lifting of certain sanctions could be an incentive.

Then we would need to do what we should have done at the beginning when we first saw thousands of Russian troops at the border of

Ukraine. We provide the military hardware and potentially the equivalent manpower we provided for South Korea and, back in the day, West Berlin, to prevent any future Russian incursion.

Defeating Russia like Afghanistan did over time worked before and would likely work again. Time is on the side of the Ukrainians if they can somehow forge peace now.

Gary Franks served three terms as U.S. representative for Connecticut’s 5th District. He was the first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years and New England’s first Black member of the House. He is the host of the podcast “We Speak Frankly.” Follow him on Twitter @GaryFranks.