Russia has a lot at stake in this crisis, and it would be a major mistake if the U.S. underestimated the length to which Moscow is willing to go to maintain what is left of its sphere of influence. While taking NATO membership off the table seems anathema to many in the West, it is merely an acknowledgement of the reality in front of us: Ukraine is not a suitable candidate for NATO membership and likely never will be. Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recognizes that Kyiv’s NATO aspirations are a “dream.”

Indeed, ending the fiction that Ukraine could join NATO is not so much a capitulation to Russian demands as it is a reflection of the alliance’s own dynamics going back as far as 2008, when the group rejected President George W. Bush’s attempt to extend the NATO security umbrella to Ukraine (and fellow former Soviet republic Georgia). As a compromise, the alliance declared that both nations “will become members of NATO” at some unspecified future date. The central tenet of NATO is that an attack on one is an attack on all, with members of the alliance promising to come to one another’s aid and defense if requested; it’s abundantly clear that NATO members are unwilling to shed blood and possibly stumble into a war with a nuclear-armed Russia for Ukraine’s sake.