While President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were duking it out in the Oval Office in a rhetorical version of the Ultimate Fighting Club that Trump loves, six Ukrainian Christian ministers from different denominations were coincidentally (or prophetically?) down the street telling guests at the Institute on Religion and Democracy how Russia is treating people inside the territory it has occupied.
Yuriy Kulakevych is a minister in the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church. He told me that 700 churches of all denominations have been deliberately damaged or destroyed by Russian rockets and by soldiers wearing badges that say "Russian Orthodox Church," the only church that he says the Russians will tolerate.
I asked him about Trump's belief that he can trust Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep his word should a ceasefire and eventual peace deal be reached. He told me: "Even when Putin speaks of the weather you can't believe him. We don't trust a word he says. Would you trust someone who has killed millions of people? Would you trust a deal with (Osama) bin Laden?"
Stanislav Nosov is president of the Ukrainian Union Conference. He says his grandfather was murdered by the communists when they ruled Russia. I ask him about Ukrainians who have tried to flee the country. He tells me about a group of 140 he knows who tried to escape and seek shelter from the constant drone and missile attacks. "Only 12 made it to safety," he says. "Some were shot. Others just disappeared."
Asked about reports of widespread corruption and mishandling of U.S. aid, Kulakevych calls such allegations "Kremlin propaganda. Only 5-7% of funds goes to the Ukrainian treasury. The rest goes to weapons and ammunition. It is easy to track where the aid goes. It isn't delivered in suitcases full of cash."
With sadness in his voice, Kulakevych adds, "We don't know what to tell our children when they ask why the Russians are doing this to us." He says children have been taken from their homes by Russian forces to the occupied territories where they are put in "orphanages" and "indoctrinated" with Russian propaganda.
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Does Trump seriously believe he can make a peace deal with Putin by the force of his personality and pressuring Zelenskyy to acquiesce to something not in his country's best interests?
It would have been instructive to hear the thoughts of the ministers after witnessing the dustup in the Oval Office that made world headlines, but they headed for the airport and a return home following their remarks.
Trump is right about wanting to end wars and save U.S. taxpayers money, but such goals cannot be reached unilaterally. It would take Putin giving up on his stated desire to recover the former Soviet territories lost at the end of the Cold War. It is unlikely he will abandon that goal as long as he stays in office. His promise to reclaim those now independent states may be the only promise the Ukrainian ministers and the West can trust him to keep.
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