Disgusting.

That’s the word watching American soldiers drop to their knees, unrolling a red carpet for the man who killed Ukrainian children yesterday and will kill more tomorrow.

While Putin posed for photos in Alaska, Ukrainian parents were pulling their kids from rubble. While he grinned in Trump’s limousine, Ukrainian mothers were digging graves. While an Orthodox bishop exchanged gifts with a war criminal, 19,000 stolen Ukrainian children remained in Russian camps.

Here’s what really happened Friday: America told the world that genocide pays. War crimes get you red carpet treatment. Russia’s Foreign Minister showed up wearing a USSR sweatshirt. Russian state media served “chicken Kyiv” on Putin’s plane while actual Kyiv burns nightly from Russia’s drones. The message was clear: We own you now.

The truth they abandoned

Putin didn’t just get legitimacy in Alaska. He got proof that the West has abandoned truth itself.

Western leaders have decided that right and wrong can be reversed. Genocide becomes “diplomacy.” War crimes become “peace talks.” Child killers become “partners.” This is the oldest human temptation—deciding for yourself what counts as good and evil instead of acknowledging what’s actually real.

Here are the truths they’ve abandoned:

Truth 1: Peoples have the right to exist. They call this a “territorial dispute” when Russian officials openly admit genocidal intent.

Putin isn’t after land—he’s after the elimination of Ukrainian statehood itself. But reality doesn’t bend to political convenience. Our right to exist isn’t negotiable.

Truth 2: Truth and justice make civilizations great, not strongmen. Trump thinks Putin is powerful. He said Russian troops “retreated” from Kyiv because they got stuck in the mud, not because ordinary Ukrainians picked up arms.

Trump promised to “Make America Great Again.” He could have done exactly that by supporting the country that’s actually upholding what makes America great. Instead, he chose to curry favor with a perpetrator of genocide.

Truth 3: Unconfronted evil grows. Politicians keep saying: “This war needs to end, it’s cost thousands of lives.”

Here’s the lie: give Putin what he wants and he’ll stop wanting more. Give the bully your lunch money and he’ll definitely leave you alone forever. But evil doesn’t get satisfied when fed—it gets hungrier.

Putin didn’t stop after Crimea. He won’t stop after Donetsk.

The choice before us

This is the West’s war being fought with Ukrainian blood. Putin isn’t just trying to erase Ukraine—he’s testing whether democratic civilization will defend itself. Friday gave him his answer.

Ukraine fights for the principle of existence itself—that different peoples should exist, should grow, should contribute their own gifts to the world. Russia unleashes the forces of chaos and destruction. Every time a people is erased, the world becomes smaller, darker, less human.

The West can abandon Ukraine today and face Putin’s tanks in Warsaw tomorrow. America can sell us out now and watch its own children conscripted later.

What must happen now

Friday was America’s test. America failed.

But Ukrainians are still fighting. Still dying for the principles democratic civilization claims to believe in. Still holding the line that Western leaders are too weak to defend.

The West has one chance left:

Send every weapon Ukraine needs. Now.

Freeze every Russian asset. Today.

Cut every pipeline, every bank, every trade deal that feeds Russian aggression.

Ukraine cannot do this alone. We shouldn’t have to. The soldiers who knelt for Putin should be loading planes with weapons for Ukraine instead.

The choice is simple: Act now, or explain later why comfort was chosen over courage when civilization hung in the balance.

Ukrainian children are still dying while Western leaders decide whether their lives matter more than political convenience.

And remember this: there can be no peace without justice. Not for us. Not for you. Not for anyone.