Thursday’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, their first showdown in a presidential campaign that hasn’t even reached peak season yet, is sure to include fireworks, angry barbs, and its fair share of passive-aggressive glares. Both men will also have to answer questions about their Ukraine policy.

The 2-1/2-year conflict has cost U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, a price tag that clearly gets on Trump’s nerves, and is now, in essence, a stalemate consisting of two armies throwing bodies into the meat grinder in the hope of coming out the other side with a few more kilometers under their control.