It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up.
In the past several weeks, the U.S. leadership has demonstrated explicit hostility towards Ukraine and aligned its rhetoric and policy with Russia.
The animosity culminated today when U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at a meeting in the Oval Office.
After a hostile meeting, Zelensky left the White House. Trump reportedly ordered the Ukrainian delegation out.
Let this sink in. The president of a battered Ukraine, an ally of the U.S., became the first world leader in history to be kicked out of the White House. Not a dictator, not a disgraced politician — the president of Ukraine, a country suffering from the worst invasion in the 21st century. The country that the U.S. administration swore to bring peace to.
In an ugly exchange, the president and vice president joined forces to admonish Zelensky for “not being grateful” enough for the help Ukraine was getting.
To that, Zelensky reminded them that he had thanked the American people multiple times, including earlier that day. But it appears that gratitude to the American people isn’t what Trump and Vance were looking for — they wanted him to grovel and prostrate himself in front of Trump. Kiss the ring.
For sure, Zelensky could have done a better job composing himself and restraining his reactions, but it’s fair to say that he was put in a situation he couldn’t win. If he let Trump and Vance — and apparently, it takes two of them to win a verbal argument against one non-native English speaker — continue their line of attack on Ukraine, unchecked, he would be seen as weak both at home and abroad. Weakness is something a country at war can’t afford to project.
Trump didn’t get into the same kind of arguments with other world leaders who publicly disagreed with him during recent meetings. He smiled and shrugged when French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer corrected him and Vance on their provocative and false statements about Europe.
Will Trump and Vance hit Vladimir Putin with the same attitude they showed towards Zelensky and scold the Russian leader for attacking Ukraine? By now, we’ve seen enough to know for sure that they won’t. If any ring-kissing happens in their meeting with Putin, the ring will be Russian.
During the heated exchange in the Oval Office, Trump even complained that Zelensky has “hatred” for Putin — the man who ordered an invasion of his country, killing thousands of civilians — saying it would be “tough” for him to “make a deal with that kind of hate.”
After the meeting, Trump claimed that Zelensky didn’t want peace. That’s a dangerous lie.
Let’s be clear. There is only one force in the world that can bring peace unilaterally, at any moment: Russia. Putin can order his troops to leave Ukraine and end the war any minute he wants. But Putin doesn’t want peace, he wants Ukraine.
Zelensky, and Ukraine, want a fair peace — one that would bring security to the embattled country and pay honor to the enormous price that it paid, losing the best of its people in a bloody fight against the invader.
What happened in the Oval Office is unprecedented, but it’s not entirely a surprise. Throughout the weeks leading up to it, Trump has demonstrated hostility towards Zelensky and Ukraine, while embracing Russia.
We’ve seen it in the things he has said and done. At every turn, there were people that stayed optimistic and tried to interpret it in a way that isn’t so bad for Ukraine — saying it’s part of a strategy, or that it’s different from what goes on behind the scenes. It appears it’s much simpler than that.
Today, Trump said that he is both “for Ukraine and Russia” in the talks. Then, he kicked Ukraine’s delegation out of the White House. There is only one simple way to understand what happened:
Donald Trump is for Russia.
The president of the United States picked Russia’s side in the war it started against its democratic neighbor — whose only fault was that it wanted to stay a democracy. Trump is choosing to side with a murderous tyrant over a democratically elected leader.
Trump and his government are now making sure Ukraine will lose this war. They are also choking their other allies in the process. But most importantly, they are betraying the interests of America, and making it weaker.
The tragedy is that Trump is doing it all in the name of millions of Americans who completely disagree with that and are disgusted with Trump’s line.
The Kyiv Independent’s emails have been overflowing with words of support, embarrassment, disgust, and apologies from our American readers who support Ukraine and disagree with Trump’s actions.
But the U.S. remains a democracy, whether its leadership cherishes it or not — and in a democracy, the people’s voices can and must be heard.
If you disagree with America’s current trajectory, with the idea that emboldening tyrants is the path to sustainable peace and prosperity, you have the power to make a difference: Call and email your representatives. Demand support for Ukraine. Organize and go to pro-Ukraine rallies. Write, post, speak, advocate. Donate to Ukrainian causes. Disagree. You are America — make your voice heard.
Americans should stand up and send their political leadership a clear message: We don’t support what you’re doing, so stop doing it in our name. We don’t want an alliance with Russia, and we don’t want a betrayal of Ukraine. And frankly, we are embarrassed.
Speak up now, before it’s too late.
America’s president may have chosen his side of history. The American people are still free to choose theirs.
The Kyiv Independent
