President-elect Donald Trump has said he will end the war in Ukraine when he returns to the Oval Office. Never mind the lack of evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks compromise.

Nonetheless, Trump says he will appoint “a very senior special envoy, someone with a lot of credibility” to negotiate a deal. European leaders may despise Trump, but they appear of like minds on the utility of trading land for peace. “I think everybody has more or less reached this conclusion. It’s hard to say it publicly because it would be a way of saying we are going to reward aggression,” former French Ambassador to the United States Gerard Araud told the Washington Post. Araud is correct. To reward Putin with territorial concessions after he laid waste to Ukraine in a war of aggression will encourage later aggression against Ukraine or new aggression against other Russian neighbors.