People may debate aid for Ukraine, but as the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion nears, one thing is clear: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to go to war was a mistake. What Putin envisioned as a two-day cakewalk to Kyiv is now a war of attrition. Russia has lost a quarter of its troops. Many more young men have fled conscription. Even if Russia formalized its Anschluss of the Donbas, the cost to Russia’s prestige and economic potential was hardly worth it.

President Joe Biden may not have been able to dissuade Russia from its error, but he was able to raise its price. While both populists and progressive Democrats suggest that money used to support Ukraine should instead be spent domestically, they err in two ways. First, the United States spends much of that money domestically, putting American manufacturers to work, and second, the cost to support Ukraine is a pittance of that which any direct battle with Russia would extract. More valid criticisms of Biden’s approach to Ukraine would be his effort to micromanage the conflict and his tendency to provide only enough weaponry to continue the fight but not win.