Former Polish president Lech Wałęsa criticises Trump's behaviour at meeting with Zelenskyy

Lech Wałęsa, the former Polish president and leader of the Solidarity movement, has written a letter to US President Donald Trump together with 39 other former Polish political prisoners to express their "concern" over the atmosphere of his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Source: the letter posted by Wałęsa on Facebook, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The authors of the letter said they had watched the recording of Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy with "horror and disgust".

They noted that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during the conversation had "reminded us of what we vividly recall from interrogations by the Security Service and courtroom trials in communist courts".

"Prosecutors and judges working on behalf of the all-powerful Communist Party police would also tell us that they held all the cards while we had none," they said.

The letter’s authors expressed their "shock" that Trump and his team had treated Zelenskyy in a similar manner.

They also stressed that they found it offensive to expect expressions of gratitude for US financial aid to Ukraine, which is fighting against Russia.

The signatories noted that it is the Ukrainian soldiers "who are shedding their blood to defend the values of the free world" who should be thanked.

"For over 11 years, they have been dying on the front line in the name of these values and the independence of their homeland, which has been attacked by Putin’s Russia. We do not understand how the leader of a country that symbolises the free world could fail to see this," the authors wrote.

They also reminded Trump of the US’s commitments under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which provided security assurances for Ukraine in exchange for it relinquishing its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.

"These guarantees are unconditional: there is not a single word suggesting that such assistance should be considered an economic exchange," the signatories added.

Background:

• On 28 February, Zelenskyy left the White House ahead of schedule after a spat with Trump and JD Vance.
• Trump claimed in response that Zelenskyy had "disrespected" the United States and was "not ready for peace".

Read this analysis by European Pravda editor Sergiy Sydorenko on what this agreement means for Kyiv and Washington

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