A longtime anti-nuclear activist vehemently opposes sending further aid to Ukraine as Russia continues waging a brutal war there after invading the country nearly a year ago.

In both writing and in an interview, Greg Mello, who heads the Los Alamos Study Group, has blamed U.S. foreign policy for goading Russia into invading its much smaller neighbor and thinks it’s time for U.S. and Ukrainian leaders to do whatever it takes to restore peace in the region — even if it means relinquishing some territories to Russia.

A peace agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin now will be more costly than eight months ago, but the longer the war drags on, the less favorable any negotiations will go for the West, Mello argues.

A staunch critic of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons program and what he describes as America’s hawkish foreign policy — including in Ukraine — Mello, who is often quoted by regional media, sees himself as fiercely pro-peace.

“It’s a question of how to limit the evil that the United States is doing, and to save as many lives as possible,” Mello said. “To try to invest in saving lives rather than more killing.”

The quickest way to stop the killing, Mello said, is for President Joe Biden to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and tell him it’s over.

Mello said he has no respect for Zelenskyy, who he accuses of sacrificing young people in an unwinnable war for public relations.

Although Mello denies taking Russia’s side, he often expresses sympathy for Russia.

Invading Ukraine was not an aggressive, unprovoked attack, but a defensive reaction against having its security threatened by NATO’s eastward expansion and Ukraine aligning with western military powers, Mello said.

Russia is feeling an existential threat not only because of NATO’s expansion, but because the U.S. has adopted a policy to stomp down Russia by imposing sanctions and trying to lure it into a regional war like this one, Mello said.

“Russia is largely the victim,” Mello said. “I lay this [escalating war] at the feet of Zelenskyy and at the feet of these brutal people in Washington who are willing to use Ukrainians as pawns in their big game.”

Seeking glory and genocide

The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine has a different view of the war and Putin’s motives for waging it.

Russia had been preparing for a full-on attack of Ukraine since 2014, when it seized the Crimean Peninsula and invaded the eastern Donbas region, all while refusing to comply with the Minsk agreement that attempted to defuse this conflict, said Marie Yovanovitch in an interview.

The more ambitious invasion was driven by Putin’s desire to expand the Russian empire and regain countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, Yovanovitch said.

“That includes Ukraine, but it also includes many other countries that are further west than Ukraine, so we need to think really hard about that,” she said.

Another reason Putin wants to conquer Ukraine is to cement his place in history, Yovanovitch said, noting he fancies himself a successor to Peter the Great and even has a painting of him in his office.

“He talks about Peter the Great, and he very clearly wants to model himself after that particular czar,” Yovanovitch said.

There is nothing that justifies Russia invading a sovereign nation, she said, adding it goes against all the principles of the international rules-based order established after World War II.

It’s a pact that even Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed onto after the immense devastation of the war, she said. So now all the blame is on Russia, the aggressor that’s attacking Ukraine and seeks to undermine world order, she said.

The U.S. must support Ukraine’s fight as much as possible, whether it’s financial or military aid, or else Russia, if it wins the war, will feel at liberty to keep pushing westward, as Putin has said he wants to do, Yovanovitch said. Other authoritarian regimes are watching to see if the U.S. and NATO will allow an autocratic nation like Russia to violently seize a smaller country that’s embracing democracy, she said.

“We really need to be resolute in terms of helping Ukraine,” Yovanovitch said.

Another grim outcome to a Russian victory would be Ukraine’s total annihilation as a country, she said. Putin has vowed to eviscerate Ukraine’s government, culture and even language, she said.

Calling for peace talks at this moment is futile because with the hostilities running so high, neither side has signaled it wants to come to the table, she said. As a diplomat, it deeply pains her to see peace as not possible at this time, she said, but Russia is intensifying the war, not letting up.

“What Putin is doing is unconscionable,” Yovanovitch said. “He wants to wipe a whole people off the face of the Earth.”

Who’s more right?

Mello insists Russia only wants to ensure it isn’t threatened on its western flank.

In the online Consortium News, Mello wrote Russia sincerely feeling in danger is evident in the “grave risks” it is taking with this invasion.

“We need neither justify nor condemn,” he wrote. “Russia’s view has to be respected, whether or not we agree with it.”

Mello said his group has created an electronic board that posts articles by others who oppose giving aid to Ukraine.

Mello said Russia has committed no atrocities, despite widespread reports of bombs and missiles hitting schools, residential areas and shelters.

“Of course there are civilian casualties in war — the greater the intensity, the more there will be,” Mello said. “Most of them we see in the West are products of the Ukrainian disinformation bureau.”

Yovanovitch said the Ukrainian government is keeping track of casualties so the families can be compensated. The U.S. and humanitarian groups also survey the carnage, gathering evidence that the killing goes beyond mere warfare, she said.

“It’s all about a terrorism campaign to break the will of the Ukrainian people,” she said.

Another anti-nuclear activist strongly disagrees with the notion that Ukraine should capitulate to Russia for the sake of peace.

“We simply cannot be surrender monkeys to authoritarianism,” said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico.

Coghlan said while he doesn’t view the U.S., NATO and Ukraine as blameless in the situation, he agrees Putin has launched a genocidal war that must be opposed.

He backs what the Biden administration is doing to help Ukraine, he added.

U.S. officials lied to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin when they said NATO would not expand into former Eastern Bloc countries, Coghlan said. But that broken promise doesn’t justify Russia’s ruthless assault on its neighbor, he said.

Mello is outside the norm in the anti-nuclear community, Coghlan said. Nearly all the activists he knows want a peace agreement, but they’re standing behind Ukraine until it happens, he said.

Coghlan said Mello belongs to a bizarre alliance of far-right and left factions whose shared purpose is troubling: They oppose sending aid to a country that is fighting for its survival against a powerful, authoritarian foe.

Mello said he’s aware that he’s in lockstep with ultraconservative U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz.

He plans to attend a march this month in Washington made up of people from the left and right protesting aid to Ukraine.

“I don’t mind being aligned with anyone who will help end the bloodshed,” Mello said. “I want to align with truth and nonviolence, no matter what political color it comes packaged in.”