OPINION:
It has been three weeks of the 47th president’s term, and sadly, there is still no peace in Ukraine. President Trump has frozen U.S. Agency for International Development funding, and Elon Musk has announced his intention to shut it down completely. This move will only deepen the humanitarian crisis.
I’ve seen the devastation in Ukraine up close. The nonprofit I co-founded three years ago, Common Man for Ukraine, does not receive government funding, so we can keep on with our work. However, the Ukrainian people deserve all the help we can offer right now, and this freeze causes a nearly insurmountable gap in vital services.
So, President Trump, I have a request: Before you set the terms to end the war, come with me to Ukraine.
I’ve spent several months during the past three years traveling from Kyiv to Odesa and Lviv to Kherson as part of our humanitarian aid missions, which support innocent children with critical supplies and vital mental health counseling.
For nearly three years, Russia’s aggressive war has resulted in more than 2.5 million internally displaced children. Come with me to Ukraine and step inside one of the dark and cold child safe houses. The aid convoys our nonprofit Common Man for Ukraine run are filled with warmth, light and food.
UNICEF states that 9 out of 10 Ukrainian children suffer from psychological and emotional trauma.
Come with me to visit the trauma counseling retreat where we’ve supported more than 900 fatherless children as they learn to cope and start an unending emotional recovery. Talk to the 6-year-old whose phone lights up bright red, not with a video or cartoon but with the air alert app that signals air raid sirens and bombing is overtaking her town where her surviving family remains. Look any one of those children in the eyes, and you’ll know more than ever why we, as Americans, as human beings, must support Ukraine.
Come with me to these villages deep within the war zone, in rural communities where fences, water towers and playgrounds are painted yellow and blue.
Come with me to Ukrainian cities, where children stroll in traditional shirts and blouses with embroidery specific to each region of the country, passed down through generations. Come with me to Ukraine, where war orphans call themselves “Sons and Daughters of Heroes of Ukraine.”
Stripping these people of the USAID-backed humanitarian assistance will not bring peace any closer to our door. A surrender cloaked as “peace” cannot change the hearts of Ukrainians by demanding they repaint their walls or change the flags above their homes. A quick resolution risks being confused with resentful subjugation and reluctant and likely temporary surrender or, worse, a Russian parade through neighboring countries, wreaking havoc with still more children’s lives.
Come with me and see what I see in the hearts of Ukrainian children that won’t be changed with two new cans of paint. We must listen to what Ukrainian people believe and want for themselves before your 24-hour peace talks begin and your foreign freeze continues. Are there parts of regions where Russian roots run so deep that people clamor for what was before? So be it. But in the vast oblasts of Ukraine, across rapeseed and sunflower fields, in Odesa and Mykolaiv and Lviv, we must listen to the beating hearts of this new democracy. These hearts are and will be forever Ukrainian.
As humanitarians alone, we cannot bring these children a bright, free and independent Ukraine — especially as the nongovernmental community will now fight for human rights with one hand tied behind our backs. But you can decide to help Ukraine defend and reclaim its freedom. During the week we spent in Ukraine last month, countless villagers told us two truths as we delivered 35,000 pounds of food and supplies right near the front lines: how deeply touched they were that Americans crossed the globe to help them and how deathly afraid they were of what would happen to them without our government’s support.
We must strike a peace that protects who Ukrainians are and what Ukrainians want.
President Trump, you know this about our country. No one can change our flag and expect our hearts to change. Who we are runs deep. So, too, in Ukraine. Russian leader Vladimir Putin will never have enough bullets to make it otherwise.
Or enough paint.
• Susan Mathison co-founded the New England-based grassroots nonprofit CommonManForUkraine.org in 2022, serves as president of her local Habitat for Humanity chapter and retired after a 30-year career at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.