On Tuesday, Katrina vanden Heuvel joined Al Jazeera America’s Real Money with Ali Velshi to discuss possible solutions to ending Ukraine’s crisis. On the question of whether the United States should send weapons to Kiev, her answer was a resolute “No.” “What good purpose does sending weapons into that situation provide?” she asked. “It fuels what is a civil war which could become a proxy war, leading both countries, all countries maybe, into a dangerous position, maybe as dangerous as the Cuban missile crisis fifty-plus years ago.”

“There is no military solution,” she said. “And if there isn’t a diplomatic solution, you could also see the fracturing of alliances with Europe…. If Ukraine is to emerge as a stable country, with the possibility of democracy, it needs to be a bridge between the West and Russia.”

—Ava Kofman