President Donald Trump (R) says he’ll pause US efforts at peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia over the latter’s barbaric invasion of the former, if those efforts don’t start bearing fruit.

Russia has refused, and it continues to refuse, to agree any ceasefire unless and until its demands for “root cause” questions are addressed and its terms for peace are agreed—terms that amount to abject surrender to Russia and to Russian control by Ukraine.

It’s entirely appropriate that we—and Europe and Ukraine—should walk away from the effort in the face of Russian studied intransigence. Given the barbarian’s steadfast refusal, it’s long past time we should have walked.

But then what?

For my money (literally and otherwise) both the US and Europe should step up—drastically—the amount and type of military and fiscal support and heavily accelerate the pace of their delivery for Ukraine. There is no other way to drive the barbarian back out of Ukraine, and by extension, prevent the barbarian’s subsequent moves into the rest of eastern and central Europe in furtherance of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s avowed goal of reconstituting the erstwhile Russian empire. And his likely continued expansion beyond that.