Donald Trump is no stranger to twisting a narrative to make it suit his purposes, no matter how disassociated from the facts it might be.
He claimed he won the 2020 election, despite no evidence to the fact. He described those who rioted on the Capitol two months after his defeat as patriots.
And now he’s taken this propensity for prevarication to the world stage, saying that Ukraine provoked the war with Russia, when in fact it was Russia that invaded its neighbor in an effort to seize more territory and thwart Ukraine’s desire to enter NATO.
Rather than bolstering a besieged ally, Trump is acting almost as if he is a mouthpiece for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, a ruthless tyrant for whom the Republican president seems to have an affinity. Trump called Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the dictator because he’s postponed elections in that country as a result of the invasion. And Trump sent this week his senior officials to engage in early peace talks with Russia, shutting Ukraine out from the discussion.
Trump’s spread of disinformation is bad enough. His encouragement of Putin, however, is reprehensible, given the misery that the Russian leader has unleashed on the Ukrainian people, simply because they want to be free to ally themselves with someone other than their rapacious neighbor.
Trump is opposed to anything associated with Joe Biden even when Biden’s policies served America’s interests, such as standing up for democracy in the world and standing against those who attack the sovereignty of other nations. Because Zelenskyy got along with Biden, and because Zelenskyy refused, during Trump’s first term, to help gather dirt against Biden and his family, Trump now appears to be looking for payback.
Such payback, though, is not paid with lost jobs or wages. It’s paid with people’s lives.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have been killed since the invasion three years ago. Hundreds of thousands have been injured. Russia has tried to freeze Ukrainians to death by knocking out power plants in the middle of winter.
America must stand by Ukraine and its leadership until Russia abandons its military quest and gives Ukraine its land back. It would be a travesty to abandon Ukraine now after all it’s been through.
