The great American investor, Peter Thiel, said in a speech in 2014 that in the modern West courage is in shorter supply than genius. It doesn’t feel like it but 2014 is now a full decade in the past, and in that time the supply of courage has continued to fall off a cliff. There could be no greater example of this than our increasingly abhorrent treatment of Ukraine.

By way of brief reminder: I am a staunch supporter of Ukraine’s struggle to maintain its independence. My mother is Ukrainian. So is my wife. I have aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives living in almost every part of the country, many of them within an hour’s drive of the front line.

While many Western commentators were claiming Russia would never attack, even as Putin’s troops were amassing on Ukraine’s borders, I warned that an invasion was imminent. When it did inevitably happen, I went on every media platform I could find to encourage Western leaders to help the Ukrainians fight off the invaders. On a single TRIGGERnometry live stream, we raised £55,000 in an hour to help with the humanitarian effort. My wife and I have sent thousands of pounds in supplies and cash to support friends and family in Ukraine.

And yet, four months ago, I wrote this article in which I argued that it was time to bring the war to an end. My argument was simple:

“To be clear, none of what follows is to suggest that Ukraine was wrong to defend itself, that we were wrong to encourage them, that we were wrong to commit considerable financial and other resources to supporting them or anything of the kind.

On the contrary, with our support, Ukraine has achieved what almost no one could have predicted when Putin first invaded.

Using our help, the Ukrainians first repelled the attacks on Kiev, Chernigov and Kharkov, before recapturing huge swathes of land and even forcing Russia to withdraw from Kherson. As a result, Ukrainian sovereignty is no longer in question, Vladimir Putin has paid a heavy price for his invasion, and the West has discovered a unity few expected, myself included.

But all of these gains occurred many months and tens of thousands of deaths ago.

The last major Ukrainian victory, the liberation of Kherson, took place exactly a year ago in November 2022. Since then, the lines on the map have barely moved, while Ukrainian boys pay with their lives for every nameless village they take and retake.”

Since then, the situation has only worsened. And it is entirely the fault of Western leaders who are too cowardly to admit a truth that sources in the British Ministry of Defence confess with heavy sighs:

We failed to give the Ukrainians what they needed after their initial successes. Last summer’s much-vaunted counter-offensive failed for two reasons: we did not give the Ukrainians the hardware they needed, and we made them wait too long for what we did provide.

The result of this is that the bravery of Ukrainians is becoming their own worst enemy. In the words of one British military officer who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, “Our main focus now is to make any equipment we send as user-friendly as possible”. Why? “Because most of the people using it have been on the front lines for less than a month”.

There are, of course, many conspiracy theories about why we continue to encourage Ukraine to fight with empty promises of help that never comes. From the rapaciousness of the military-industrial complex to the desire to erode Russia’s strength by fighting “to the last Ukrainian”. But the wildest conspiracy theory of all is that we keep cheering them on because we want them to win and believe they can.

The real reason is, sadly, both far simpler and far uglier:

Western leaders cheer on the fight while continually failing to provide the help Ukraine needs because they are afraid of being the first one to break ranks. Their fear is understandable too. When I wrote the article I quoted above, every single person with whom I had ever debated or disagreed over Ukraine came out triumphantly to claim that they’d been right all along.

Peter Hitchens, David Sacks, Dave Smith, Jack Posobiec and countless others, none of whom had actually read the piece in question, all claimed that I had finally changed my mind and come round to the correct position.

Ardent Ukraine supporters, on the other hand, who’d been sharing my commentary enthusiastically all along, suddenly discovered that I was in fact born in Moscow. I  immediately became suspect and persona non grata in their circles.

Both groups are, naturally, entirely wrong. I never changed my mind about the decision to support Ukraine. But, as I explained in the first few days of the war, the point of our support was to help Ukraine get the best deal possible. This would always involve territorial concessions in exchange for long-term security. From the get-go, the reason we helped Ukraine fight is so that they could make the best possible peace.

Western politicians know that the war is moving in the wrong direction. President Biden, who milked in applause from his own side during his recent State of the Union address for sounding defiant about his support for Ukraine, is surely better informed than I am about how things are going. But, no doubt still reeling from his calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, he is afraid of looking weak precisely because he is weak. And brave Ukrainians are paying for his cowardice with their lives.

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