For Ukraine, Holy Week Was Holy Hell

The Trump Administration never had Ukraine’s interest at heart.

On Good Friday, Ukraine learned that the betrayers in the White House seemed ready to move on from what they had called “peace talks.” The Trump Administration had made its pro-Kremlin bias clear from the beginning of its engagement – with Trump going so far as to say that Ukraine started the full-scale invasion.

Trump officials declared in February that the prospect of Ukraine’s NATO membership, the return of all sovereign Ukrainian territory, and U.S. military presence in the region to deter future Russian aggression were all off the table. It was music to Moscow’s ears before so-called negotiations had even begun. Having established a point of negotiating weakness for Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump golf buddy Steve Witkoff then met with their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia without Ukraine or Europe at the table.

For supporters of Ukraine, Trump Administration behavior could only be explained as an intervention on Russia’s behalf. Trump, having floated economic partnership with the Kremlin in the Arctic (putting the U.S. in a stronger position to seize Greenland) and a U.S.-Russia aluminum cooperative (weakening aluminum-exporting Canada, which Trump sees as America’s 51st state), revealed the White House’s motives.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team, while not expressing it publicly, must have felt a sense of relief that the U.S. was telegraphing its exit from the so-called peace process. No longer would Kyiv need to both fight Russia on the ground and fight the White House’s insistence on doing Russia’s bidding.

By removing itself from the process, the United States – the same nation that won the Cold War and helped bring about 1991 independence for Ukraine and other nations that had suffered through decades of Kremlin oppression – would at least leave Ukraine a fighting chance to fend off current Kremlin oppression with America’s former European allies at its side.

Zelensky addresses Congress on December 21, 2022. Photo credit: Getty.

That’s how much America’s new authoritarian-minded regime has abandoned our historic values. Washington’s reception of Zelensky at a 2022 joint session of the U.S. Congress was a hero’s welcome. Cheering members of Congress on both sides of the aisle waving Ukrainian flags as he entered the House chamber reflected the American people’s support for Kyiv’s fight. Only a far fringe led by Boebert, Gaetz, and Greene contradicted that scene. But that fringe had since taken over Washington.

On February 28, 2025, Zelensky was berated by Trump in the White House during what legacy media wrongly described as a shouting match. Source: The New York Times

For the fourth consecutive year, Ukrainian defenders would spend Holy Week – a time intrinsic to Ukrainian identity, faith and heritage – fighting for their freedom to exist as a nation. There would be no ceasefire or partial ceasefire and Putin did not even follow his unilateral Easter ceasefire announced for mere propaganda.

Setting the stage for the week was a four-hour Kremlin meeting between Putin and Witkoff, Trump’s golf buddy. The foreign policy novice’s takeaway was that peace in Ukraine was possible – all Kyiv had to do was surrender the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (what Witkoff called “territories”) as well as Crimea. Witkoff even gave U.S. credence to staged Russian referenda, charades in which occupied Ukrainians – many at gunpoint – supposedly voted to join Russia. In other words, the Trump Administration was 100 percent in sync with Putin propaganda. Never mind that Ukrainians in the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, totaling more than one million people, are free from Russian occupation today, albeit under consistent Russian air attacks. Witkoff believes they should all simply surrender themselves to Russian authority. For “peace.”

What the Trump Administration calls “peace” would mean Ukrainian men being conscripted into the Russian military to join meatwave attacks on whichever front Putin decided to attack next. “Peace” would mean Ukrainian children continuing to face widespread abduction like the 20,000 already pulled from their families for “reeducation” in Russia. Why would Ukrainians be unwilling to accept such a thoughtful gift of “peace” from the Kremlin and White House? Ukrainians know what “peace” under Russian occupation looks like.

On Palm Sunday morning as Ukrainians attended services, two Russian ballistic cluster munitions struck central Sumy and the city fell into mourning on a day that would have otherwise brought celebration and fellowship to a fatigued yet resilient people. Thirty-five Ukrainian civilians perished from the blasts and more than 100 people were hospitalized.

A Ukrainian first responder takes a moment to gather himself as the dust settles on April 13 in Sumy. Photo credit: Getty.

Ukraine had still been reeling from the horror of an April 4 ballistic missile attack targeting a playground in Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih. Nine children with nearly their whole lives ahead of them were stripped of life in an instant along with nine adults caring for them. These kids knew little – yet far too much – about adult wars.

Ukraine’s European allies have strong defense manufacturing capacity, but they do not produce any air defense system capable of shielding Ukrainian cities from the ballistic missiles Putin used to murder civilians on April 4 and April 13. Zelensky offered the U.S. a full $15 billion for 10 PATRIOT systems. Trump balked at the offer, repeating the lie that Ukraine started the war. So much for the U.S. closing its trade deficit with Europe…

The U.S. has gone from Cold War strength to Kremlin capitulation. From the 1994 Budapest Memorandum to suggesting the surrender of five oblasts for “peace.” From standing with Kyiv to refusing to sell its defense systems for profit. Ukraine still has governments on its side across Europe and in Canada, but those governments will need to step up bigtime, because the best Team Trump can offer is to get out of the way. And that’s a damn shame.