Timothy Snyder / Translation by Serhiy Hromenko / Obozrevatel
And what Ukraine gives us.
Donald Trump has just stated that the United States has done “a lot” for Ukraine, but Ukraine has done “nothing” for the United States.
This is very unfair. And it’s not just untrue in the usual sense—it’s a big lie intended to sow fear and chaos.
Right now, the United States has agreed to purchase Russian diesel fuel, which violates both its own laws and international sanctions agreements, effectively putting America on Russia’s side in the war. The US is also denying Ukraine access to Starlink services (which have already been paid for), thereby making it significantly harder for Ukraine to protect its population from Russian attacks.
The United States is practically not providing Ukraine with military assistance, and the Trump administration’s policy is to refuse such aid. Europeans are purchasing American weapons and supplying them to Ukraine, but even these contractual obligations are not being fulfilled by the American side. The most important weapons are Patriot interceptors, which are necessary for Ukraine to defend against Russian ballistic missiles.
In other words, the Trump administration has made Ukrainians more vulnerable to Russian attacks through its actions. If anyone still had doubts about the overall direction: the US president has repeatedly called on the Ukrainian president to resign. Thus, the question is not how much the US is doing for Ukraine. The question is why the US has now come to aid the Russian aggressor.
But perhaps this isn’t even the biggest injustice in Trump’s statement: “You know, we’ve given a lot to Ukraine. They haven’t given us anything.” Ukrainians have been fighting the biggest war since 1945 for almost five years now. This war has lasted longer than World War I and longer than America’s participation in World War II. They are suffering military and civilian losses daily. Relative to their population size, they have suffered losses on a scale that Americans have never experienced, except during the Civil War. They endure weekly events equivalent to 9/11 due to Russian terrorist attacks.
And yet Ukrainians are defending themselves, very effectively. By doing so, they are also making a huge contribution to our lives. Because they have been doing this for so long and so well, it’s unfortunately too easy to take Ukraine’s contributions to American and global security for granted. Therefore, I will list just a few of them here.
Ukraine is upholding the fundamental principle of international law that states have sovereignty, and one country should not seize territory from another through aggression.
Ukraine fulfills NATO’s entire mission, which is to protect Europe from Russian aggression. It performs the task assigned to NATO’s thirty-two members, including the United States and Canada. Ukraine is doing this work on its own.
Ukraine reduces the likelihood of a world war. Russia has already demonstrated the most serious security problem on a European scale — the Russian invasion of a European country. On a global scale, the greatest danger is Chinese aggression against Taiwan. By defending itself, Ukraine has demonstrated the difficulties of offensive operations and made such a war less likely.
Ukraine reduces the possibility of nuclear war. Russia is a nuclear state. Ukraine is not. If Russia is allowed to defeat Ukraine, other mid-sized states will likely conclude that they need to develop nuclear weapons for self-defense. By restraining Russia, Ukraine is also curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Ukraine protects us all from oligarchy, from the power of the super-rich. Putin’s idea that Ukraine is not a real country is an example of oligarchic fantasy, the same billionaire nonsense that can take lives and destroy the planet. By resisting Russian aggression, Ukraine shows that democracy can defend itself.
Ukraine is an example of freedom. In Ukraine, even under wartime conditions, civil society functions, and people express their opinions. Under Russian occupation, a completely different way of life prevails: women are raped; children are deported to Russia for assimilation; local activists are killed; young people are forcibly conscripted into the Russian army to die; complete unification is imposed.
Thus, what Trump says is wrong in the broadest sense. Ukraine works for our security and our freedom. Ukrainians have held back the worst and given us all time.
And Trump’s assertion is incorrect in the narrow sense. From the beginning of the war, Ukraine has provided the United States with battlefield intelligence. It has shared its experience of modern warfare with American institutions.
It has even sent — during these challenging times inside Ukraine — hundreds of its experienced air defense soldiers to the Middle East to help protect Americans and their allies from Iranian drones. Imagine what these Ukrainian crews, separated from their besieged country to protect Americans, think when their contribution is denied, and their own families face greater danger due to U.S. policies.
Trump’s statement is not only unfair. It is not just a lie. It is a big lie, designed not to describe the world, but to change it, to blame the victim and aid the aggressor, to betray an ally and destroy alliances, to create a world where everyone except the rich and powerful feels unsafe, a world where only the personal feelings and personal affairs of a handful of oligarchs and dictators matter.
