Our group, which included fourteen Senate and House staff members from both parties, spent several days in Kyiv and Warsaw. Two weeks earlier, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladmir Putin had met in Alaska to discuss the war. This was followed three days later by seven European leaders accompanying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House for more meetings. The Russian president, they believe, is merely using negotiations with Trump as a stalling tactic to avoid harsher sanctions. Guards stand at the entrance gate of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv, Ukraine.