"Your Excellency Mr. President,
We have followed with concern and disgust your conversation with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky. It is deeply offensive to expect Ukraine to show gratitude for the support the USA provides in the fight against Russia. We owe true gratitude to the Ukrainian soldiers who risk and sacrifice their lives every day for the values of freedom. For more than 11 years, they have fought for the country's independence against Putin's aggression.
We are surprised that the leader of the country symbolizing freedom and democracy does not recognize this.
We were also shaken by the tone that characterized the meeting in the Oval Office. It reminded us of the interrogations we ourselves were subjected to by communist security services – where the authorities made us understand that they had all the power while we had none. We were pressured to give up our fight and told that we were to blame for others' suffering. Our freedoms and rights were taken from us because we refused to cooperate and show gratitude for our own oppression. We are shocked to see President Zelensky treated the same way.
History shows that when the USA has tried to distance itself from its democratic values and allies, it has ultimately become a threat to itself. President Woodrow Wilson realized this in 1917 when he decided that the USA should enter the First World War. Franklin D. Roosevelt also understood this when, after Pearl Harbor in 1941, he decided that the fight for the USA's freedom should also be fought in Europe – together with the countries attacked by the Nazis.
We remember that the fall of the Soviet Union would not have been possible without President Ronald Reagan and the USA's economic engagement. Reagan knew that millions of people suffered under Soviet oppression – both in Russia and in the countries Moscow had subjected. He understood what thousands of political prisoners sacrificed in the fight for democracy. He had the courage to call the Soviet Union an "Empire of Evil" and fight it without hesitation. Today his statue stands in Warsaw, facing the American embassy – a symbol of what the fight for freedom and principled leadership means.
Mr. President, military and economic support can never be compared to the lives lost in Ukraine's fight for freedom – a fight that also protects Europe and the free world. A human life cannot be measured in money. Gratitude is for those who sacrifice their blood and freedom. We who were part of Solidarity and were imprisoned for our resistance to communism know this better than anyone else.
We urge the USA to stand by the promises made in 1994 with the Budapest Memorandum. At that time, the USA and the United Kingdom guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for the country giving up its nuclear weapons. Those promises were unconditional – nowhere does it say that this support should be considered a financial deal.
Sincerely,
Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner and president of Poland"
