Today marks the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I say full-scale because the giant nation tightly controlled by dictator Vladimir Putin abetted and fought alongside a separatist movement that seized Crimea and part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and engaged in skirmishes with the Armed Forces of Ukraine throughout the following eight years. The Russian-backed separatists even shot down a civilian airliner traveling from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in July 2014, killing all 298 people on board. The separatists then looted the belongings of their victims, all of this a harbinger of the level of terrorism and criminality that the Russian invaders would bring to the rest of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
For the remaining years of Joe Biden’s administration, the United States openly and proudly backed Ukraine, though perhaps not as aggressively as it should have out of fear of Putin’s nuclear threats. For instance, the U.S. gave missiles to Ukraine but restricted their use to the battlefield and the territories in Ukraine already occupied by Russia. This prevented Ukraine from striking the oil facilities that financed Russia’s war and the armaments factories deep inside Russia that supplied it. Nonetheless, for the first two or so years of the war, the Ukrainians could count on the U.S. as an ally.
All that changed as a result of the November 2024 presidential election. From the very beginning of the war, Trump praised Putin as a genius and encouraged further attacks on what he saw as the weaker country and the one that thwarted his plans to embroil Biden in a scandal in advance of the 2020 election that he lost. (And despite his claims otherwise and the attack by his followers on the U.S. Capitol, he did lose.) Since becoming president again, he has cut off all aid to Ukraine, shared U.S. intelligence with Russia, and taken Russia’s side in demanding Ukraine cede territory that Russia has not in fact conquered on the battlefield. He bullied Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a televised White House meeting last year and continues to praise Putin for being a strong leader who upholds “Western values” that include the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in Russia and discrimination against nonwhite, non-Christian minorities.
A lot of people attribute Trump’s decision to basically switch sides in this war to kompromat, compromising information that Putin holds over Trump. I disagree. I don’t think that any released kompromat will elicit more than a shrug. After all, much has already come out with the Epstein Files and the cover-up is expanding. We all pretty much know what he did, and he’s still in power.
Rather I think Putin is serving the same role for Trump that notorious Joseph McCarthy aide Roy Cohn did at the beginning of his career. Cohn trained Trump to become the most ruthless of businessmen. Now Putin is training him to become the most ruthless of dictators, one who can steal billions from his people, silence his enemies through punishments that escalate to death, and subvert and invade neighbors to enrich himself and his small coterie of oligarchs. It’s that simple. Putin is the coach, and he will not be fired unless his player starts losing or unless, like Cohn did in the end, he becomes too weakened to garner respect.
So where does that leave the vast majority of people in the U.S. who claim to support Ukraine — including many people who voted for Trump in 2024 and maybe even still consider themselves MAGA supporters on other issues? These people do exist. For example, right before the election I attended a concert of the Ukrainian rock group Okean Elzy, which was in part a fundraiser for Ukraine. The middle-aged man sitting in front of me (probably of Ukrainian heritage as were about 75% of the attendees) was scrolling through photos of Trump and MAGA ads and messages. I suspect he didn’t believe Trump would turn against his beloved Ukraine, just as the many Latinos who voted for Trump or supported him didn’t believe he would arrest and deport them.
Whatever your views about the current regime, if you still support Ukraine, now is the time to step up. You’re not going to change the Trump’s mind. He’s not listening to any of us. But you have money and other resources that Ukraine needs. We still have the right in the U.S. to support causes that the leadership does not agree with, and we should take advantage of this right by donating to organizations that provide humanitarian relief to Ukrainians who this winter endured a terror bombing campaign that destroyed the country’s electrical and heating systems. Russia continues to target schools, hospitals, and residential buildings with drones and ballistic missiles. Since the new regime in the U.S. took power, the number of civilian deaths from bombings has increased over 30%, to an average of about 10 killed and 35 injured per day. Imagine the per capita equivalent in the U.S. — 100 people killed and 350 injured per day due to aerial bombing by a foreign power — along with all the homes and other infrastructure destroyed. Two excellent organizations to support are Razom for Ukraine, which specializes in humanitarian support, and United 24, which was established by Ukrainian president Zelenskyy and includes aid for defense, educational initiatives, and funds for medical care for those injured on the battlefield and in bombings of civilians.
We talk about Ukraine’s resilience, but it’s a big deal to have a major ally flip to support your enemy. Ukraine still holds out for its nationhood and a just peace, and it’s even more important than ever to show that if the U.S. government is no longer on Ukraine’s side, the U.S. people are.
