The leader of «Solidarity», the first president of Poland Lech Wałęsa, along with 38 democratic activists, former Polish political prisoners issued an open letter to US President Donald Trump, reminding him of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which does not allow assistance to Ukraine to be considered as «economic exchange», since the US took on security guarantees. In his address, he compared the behavior of the Oval Office occupant and his subordinates to the actions of secret service officers and judges in communist Poland.
«Dear Mr. President,
We watched with concern and disgust the report of your conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. We find it offensive that you expect respect and gratitude for the material assistance provided by the United States to Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Gratitude should be expressed to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood defending the values of the free world. It is they who have been dying on the front lines for more than 11 years in the name of these values and the independence of their homeland, which was attacked by Putin's Russia. We do not understand how the leader of a country that is a symbol of the free world can fail to see this.
Our horror was also caused by the fact that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation resembled the one we remember well from interrogations in the Security Service and court sessions in communist courts. Prosecutors and judges appointed by the all-powerful communist political police also explained to us that they held all the cards, while we had none. They demanded that we cease our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people were suffering because of us. They deprived us of freedom and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the authorities and express gratitude to them. We are appalled that you treated President Volodymyr Zelensky in a similar manner.
The history of the 20th century shows that every time the United States wanted to keep its distance from democratic values and its European allies, it ultimately put itself in danger. President Woodrow Wilson understood this when he decided to involve the US in World War I in 1917. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt also understood this when, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he decided that the war to protect America would be fought not only in the Pacific but also in Europe, in alliance with the countries attacked by the Third Reich.
We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and American financial commitments, the collapse of the Soviet empire would have been impossible. President Reagan knew about the suffering of millions of enslaved people in Soviet Russia and the countries it conquered, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their sacrifice defending democratic values with their freedom. His greatness, among other things, lies in the fact that he unequivocally called the USSR an «evil empire» and gave it a decisive rebuff. We won, and today in Warsaw, at the US embassy, stands a statue of President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. President, material assistance—military and financial—cannot be equivalent to the blood shed in the name of the independence and freedom of Ukraine, Europe, and the entire free world. Human life is priceless, its value cannot be measured in money. Gratitude should be expressed to those who sacrifice blood and freedom. For us, people of «Solidarity», former political prisoners of the communist regime serving Soviet Russia, this is obvious.
We urge the United States to fulfill the guarantees it gave along with the United Kingdom in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, where there was a clear commitment to protect the inviolability of Ukraine's borders in exchange for its surrender of nuclear weapons stockpiles. These guarantees are unconditional: there is no mention of considering such assistance as economic exchange».
The letter is signed by several dozen former Polish political prisoners, active members of the «Solidarity» movement, and democratic leaders, including Adam Michnik and Henryk Sikora.