Today you will be hosting a rally with Bernie Moreno in Parma, the very community with more Ukrainians or people of Ukrainian descent, than any other town in Ohio. Yet there are no ethnicities you have disrespected more in your brief time as a Senator, all the while, Ukraine, a U.S. ally fights for its very existence against a brutal Russian invasion. Your decision to host a rally in Parma, bringing with it a fired-up crowd of MAGA ruffians, after you’ve said “kiss my ass” to more assistance to Ukraine, is contemptuous at best, and dangerous at worst.

Ukraine is an important ally and fierce defender of freedom, invaded by a bloodthirsty neighbor determined to wipe it off the map. Yet you have repeatedly been publicly critical of Ukraine, voted against military aid packages even though the battlefield results of which have been wildly successful, insulted President Zelensky as “a beggar,” performed verbal gymnastics in blaming Iran for terrorism in the Middle-East while ignoring that Russia is their primary bankroller, and parroted intentionally misleading Russian propaganda about a “negotiated settlement” but have gotten it completely wrong. This has turned you into exactly what you claim not to be; a “Putin stooge.”

Underdogs, freedom-fighters, strength in the face of adversary, and decisive leadership are all qualities Americans have historically loved and supported. Playing the role of Patton, George C. Scott with fantastic vigor said “Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed…Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.” Few U.S. allies have ever embodied Scott’s riveting dialogue of what Americans love than Ukraine and Ukrainians.

Russian propagandists openly stated that they wished to create a global famine by blockading Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea to strongarm the free-world into dropping its sanctions on Russia. Ukraine a nation without a navy however was not dismayed and through its own ingenuity, destroyed a fifth of the Black Sea Fleet and returned its grain shipments to pre-war levels. When Russia side-stepped western sanctions on its oil by selling en masse and at great profit to China and India, Ukraine, a nation without a significant air force, imposed its own sanctions on Russian oil through a systematic drone campaign against more than a dozen Russian oil refineries.

Facing incredible odds stacked against it, Ukrainians decisively defeated a significantly quantitively larger invading force across the entire Kyiv-Sumy-Chirnihiv front by March 2022 and sent the Russians running from Kharkiv in September 2022. These liberations brought with them uncovery of the savage Russian crimes committed in Bucha and Izyum, both of which contained mass graves filled with hundreds of civilians.

With its resources eroded from massive losses to the courageous Ukrainian defenders, Russia turned in late 2022 to an alliance with terrorist sponsoring Iran for drones, while committing the war crime of aiming billions of dollars of missiles against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Selling at least seventeen hundred $20,000 drones to Russia at a whopping $190,000 apiece massively aided Iran’s sanction strapped economy by yielding roughly $4 billion in annual sales; much of which can be invested in its axis of militant Islamic militias spread across the Middle East.

Since November 2022 when Ukraine liberated Kherson, its Armed Forces have heroically contained Russian forces in a relatively small region of southern and eastern Ukraine, comprising roughly 18% of the country. In that time Russia has thrown away enormous resources taking small cities at great cost,

while being forced to release prisoners to fight and declaring partial mobilization of its citizenry to replace its decimated forces.

Time and again Ukrainians proved themselves impressively resourceful and responsible at seamlessly integrating NATO weaponry into their arsenals. HIMARS rockets decimated Russian ammunition stockpiles, a handful of short-range ATACMS ballistic missiles wiped out nearly an entire regiment of Russian attack helicopters on the tarmac, and Storm Shadow cruise missiles destroyed a nuclear submarine at dock and leveled the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet.

Still the collective west dithered at every turn, wasting valuable time debating concerns of “escalation” while Russia escalated every day. Strapped for ammunition by the later summer of 2023, Russia again turned to another pariah state, North Korea, for artillery shells, a million of which were promptly delivered within months. By late 2023, Ukraine faced an entire axis of evil on its territory, Russia, and vicariously Iran and North Korea.

While Russia’s allies proved reliable partners, a handful of rogue members of the United States Congress, yourself included, delivered a devastating, months long and yet unresolved blow to Ukraine, by freezing the $61 billion Foreign Aid bill in Congressional deadlock. During those months dating back to September 2023, Russia gained a 5 to 1 advantage in artillery ammunition over Ukraine, which they used to pulverize, and then fully capture the city of Avdiivka. With no end in sight for resolution of United States funding, Ukraine, which just over a year ago had Russian forces literally on the run, is now under threat of losing considerable territory to Russia, as they are fast running out of ammunition.

Once Ukrainian air defense supplies become exhausted from incessant Iranian drone and Russian missile attacks, the Russian Air Force will turn to World War 2 style carpet bombings of Ukrainian cities, wiping them off the map. When Ukrainian artillery ammunition becomes depleted, the Russian Army will return to the saturation fire tactics they did in the summer of 2022, by massing their guns, and firing 60,000 shells a day, which North Korea will be happy to sell them.

Defiant city after city will eventually fall, and Europe and the United States will be laden with 20 million Ukrainian refugees, who have no chance of ever returning home. The world will be reminded of the Budapest Memorandum, in which the United States guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine relinquishing its Soviet nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and strategic bombers. The world too will ask, “is walking away from an ally and allowing it to be destroyed the United States’s definition of a ‘guarantee’?”

This entire scenario is completely preventable through funding and aiding Ukraine, whose soldiers have by your own admission, “fought courageously” and accomplished amazing feats against a far larger Russian military.

Yet you say that you oppose aid to force Ukraine to “think rationally” and realize that they cannot win. While nearly every Ukrainian believes in their own victory, you heartlessly condescend them by saying that “anyone with a brain in their head” knows that this war must end with “negotiations.”

Although you repeatedly parrot purposely misleading Russian propaganda about a “negotiated settlement,” the Russians themselves have incessantly proven you wrong on the topic.

I ask, who is to partake in these “negotiations” senator?

Russia refuses to acknowledge that Ukraine exists, and relegates its leadership to a horde of foreign nazis propped up by the west. So Russia is out. They are not going to throw away a decade of carefully crafted propaganda to sit down at the negotiating table with an enemy that “doesn’t exist.”

Putin himself proved you wrong on withholding aid to force Ukraine the “think rationally” and realize that they must “negotiate.” The dictator openly said just last week that “it would be ridiculous for us to start negotiating on Ukraine because they are running out of ammunition.”

While you call it “preposterous” and a Democrat “scare tactic” to suggest that Russia would attack a NATO country after destroying Ukraine, but in recent weeks, the Russian government has issued an arrest warrant for Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, and threatened to murder Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics.

Dmitri Medvedev who has repeatedly released scores of poisonous and genocidal statements about Ukrainians, ranging anywhere from “let the earth burn beneath their feet,” to “the existence of the ‘cancerous growth’ known as Ukraine is mortally dangerous to Ukrainians…as its presence…will now and always be” a cause of indefinite war, has now released a 7-point plan for “negotiations” on Ukraine. These include “unconditional surrender” of Ukraine, international recognition of the erasure of Ukrainian sovereignty, international acknowledgement of the ‘Nazi character’ of Ukraine, the resignation of all government authorities, and the payment of reparations…to Russia.

As you prepare for your visit today to Parma, take a moment and reflect on the Russian propaganda you are proliferating and the sacrifices you are dismissively expecting Ukraine to endure. Review Medvedev’s 7-points, and identify even just one that you would accept if you were in Ukraine’s position. Drop the unsupported MAGA talking point that Ukraine needs to negotiate when Russia, the aggressor, has zero intention of ending their invasion.

Stop your incessant disparagement of Ukraine for requiring support, and instead focus your criticism where it belongs, on Russia for launching and continuing a brutal and illegal invasion. Listen to George C. Scott’s “Patton” speech on Youtube and ask yourself ‘what would Patton do’ in your place of leadership in the free-world; submit to evil or defend your allies? Think about the future you want for the world, and do what is right and side with democracy and peace through strength; not authoritarianism and violence.

Lastly, talk to a Ukrainian, as there will be plenty there today. While tragically some are women and children refugees who are only here for safety from Russia’s invasion, many are voting citizens of your state, whom you represent. By letting even just a fraction of their zeal for life, love of freedom and determination for victory into your heart, you may just find a part of yourself you didn’t know was there.

Slava Ukraini

Jeffrey Owens

New Holland, Ohio