Cold War hero Lech Wałęsa was among a group of former Polish political prisoners who on Monday condemned the Trump administration’s increasingly hostile stance toward Ukraine.
In a message posted to Facebook, Wałęsa, a leader in the 1980s Solidarity campaign that helped usher out his country’s communist government, said he watched last week’s chaotic White House meeting between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky with “horror and disgust.”
During the talks, Vice President JD Vance accused Zelensky of being ungrateful, while Trump taunted the Ukrainian leader, telling him: “You don’t have the cards right now with us.”
In the message, signed by several other activists, Wałęsa, a labor leader who helped end Soviet domination in Europe and later served as president of his country, said the meeting reminded him of hostile encounters with Soviet-backed forces in Poland, where “prosecutors and judges, commissioned by the all-powerful communist political police, also explained to us that they held all the cards and we had none.”
He added: “Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world.”
The Polish activists also pointed to the long history of the U.S. opposing totalitarian forces in Europe during WWI, WWII, and the Cold War.
“We do not understand how the leader of a country that is a symbol of the free world cannot see this,” the group wrote.
The message to Trump was posted before the most dramatic U.S. break with Ukraine yet, however.
Later Monday, the administration reportedly suspended all military aid to Ukraine.
In a Monday night interview with Fox News, Vance called on Zelensky to sign a deal for U.S. interests to access rare minerals in Ukraine and show he had a “serious proposal for how he was going to engage in the process.”
Vance continued to chastise the Ukrainian leader, saying: “You’re not going to do that if you come to the Oval Office, insult the president and refuse to follow his plan for peace.”
He added: “There are details that really matter, that we’re already working on with the Russians.”
Continental allies of Ukraine have suggested Europe could increase defense support to Ukraine, and place a European peacekeeping force in the country to prevent further Russian aggression.
