“I do believe that the only viable way to respond to this tragic news is to provide more assistance, more weapons to Ukraine,” Edgars Rinkevics says, adding that “to some extent, the possibility of a better Russia, a more democratic Russia, currently lies not in Russia itself but in Ukraine.”

“I believe we still have this very wrong narrative that ‘we are going to support Ukraine as long as it takes.’ We should change it to ‘we are going to support Ukraine to victory, even with all the issues [and] problems that we now face: funding, a bit of fatigue,’” he says.

“But I think that this is a major, important message that the leaders of the free world should send: We will support Ukraine until victory.”