The deep issue in the Russia-Ukraine war is how to end an aggressive 21st-century war while avoiding nuclear devastation and multimillion casualties.

Unfortunately, raw casualties in Ukraine have reached the multimillions. U.K., Polish and Ukrainian sources report Russia and Ukraine combined already have already suffered over a million and a half dead and wounded. Actually, closer to 2 million, counting civilians. Two million would be plural (multi-) millions.

More dead and maimed human beings in a war that rational leaders could stop is a horror. President Donald Trump hammers that fact 24/7. Whatever his diplomatic flaws, feints and verbal tangents, since fall 2024 Trump has been planet Earth's most insistent humanitarian advocate for stopping carnage in the Congo, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Nigeria and Russia-Ukraine. He tries to use his presidential power and risks his personal prestige to stop slaughter in every hard corner. Trump is the world's top power peace advocate. (And confused leftist peaceniks gnash their teeth.)

On Nov. 25, Trump once again said the Russia-Ukraine war must stop because of the bloodshed: "... In the last month, 25,000 soldiers have died in Ukraine and Russia." That's killed. Add another (likely) 30,000-plus wounded and that's 55,000 more dead and maimed.

So, how does this horror end — or slowly peter out into another frozen conflict? Another Korea. Another China-India in the Himalayas. Frozen wars.

The Cold War was a frozen war that ended. It ended because the Soviet Union (Russian empire under communism) went bankrupt.

Since the Russia-Ukraine War began in February 2014, the key strategic issue is this: In the 21st century, how does an aggressive, imperialist, nuclear-armed nation wage territory-seizing, city-destroying warfare when even its megalomaniacal leader knows the conflict he has provoked threatens nuclear-armed adversaries who possess far superior economic, cultural, diplomatic, media and conventional warfare capabilities?

I don't write this in retrospect. In November 2004, I wrote a column sketching Putin's plan to reconstruct a Russian empire. He would seek to recover the "core empire strength: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan (RUBK — pronounced "rubik," as in the tricky, tough-to-solve puzzle called Rubik's Cube.)" Google it. Today's news 21 years ago.

In February 2022, Vlad Putin thought his special operation attack to seize Kyiv would end in a victorious three-week blitzkrieg. Almost four years later, after a million Russian casualties, a distressed Russian economy and a huge debt to Siberia-desiring China, he finds he's bogged in a World War I trench and bunker war stalked by drones, pounded by smart munitions and confronted by a NATO that now includes Finland and Sweden.

Putin clearly miscalculated. He miscalculated in 2014. Between 2014 and 2022, Finland and Sweden overtly engaged with NATO nations in military exercises. Overtly is an important word. During the Cold War, both nations were quasi-NATO allies. Sweden and Finland consistently shared intelligence information with NATO. The 2014 seizure of Crimea ended the costume play of neutralism.

However, to Ukraine's end, Finland's and Sweden's NATO membership is a strategic Russian political, economic, diplomatic, and yes, military defeat.

Does Putin know that? Yes. Which is why Trump thought he was desperate for a ceasefire. Putin, however, is a megalomaniac. And Tyrant Putin is Russia's center of gravity.

But he doesn't want to pull the nuclear trigger. By my count, he or his media proxies have threatened nuke attack three dozen times. No blasts.

So what does a real ceasefire to peace deal look like?

No. 1: Total ceasefire. Trump must insist on this. No tactical bullets on the trench line. No missile, drone and artillery attacks on cities and infrastructure.

No. 2: Stipulate Russia, under Putin's rule, violated the 1994 Budapest Accord. That sorry Clinton deal traded Ukrainian nukes for territorial security. What a bad precedent for everyone who wants to reduce the threat of nuclear war.

No. 3: Stipulate Putin's March 2014 annexation of Crimea violated post-WWII understandings that no one changes a European border by force.

No. 4: Russia keeps Crimea if it pays for all the destruction its war wrought on Ukraine. Cities. Farms. Indemnities for dead and wounded. Hey, Moscow, spend petrodollars. Drill baby drill.

No. 5: Other territorial claims: After Russian forces withdraw to Russia and all citizens (including those forcibly taken to Russia) are returned, Donbas areas may hold a plebiscite to remain in Ukraine or join Russia (if they choose to do so). Withdrawal and plebiscites are conducted under NATO and United Nations supervision. Draw U.N. troops from India, Jordan, South Africa, Brazil and Singapore.

No. 6: Ukraine gets NATO-level sovereignty security guarantees (U.S.-Canada and Europe). What this means: If Russia attacks Ukraine again, it's at war with the U.S., U.K., France, Finland, Germany, Poland — even Canada.

Should Vlad reject? Best response: Embarrassed Russian generals with 9mm pistols act to save Mother Russia from the tyrant's looming ruin. More likely response: Ukrainian drone enters Vlad's bathroom window.

To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Nicolas J Leclercq at Unsplash