WARSAW (Reuters) – Lech Walesa, the former Polish president and Solidarity trade union leader who played a leading role in the fall of Communism, signed a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump expressing “horror” at his argument with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The Nobel Peace Prize-winner posted the text of the letter, which was signed by 39 Polish former political prisoners, on Facebook on Monday.
In an extraordinary meeting that was broadcast live on Friday, Trump accused Zelenskiy of being ungrateful for U.S. aid, of showing disrespect to his country and of risking World War Three, casting into doubt Washington’s ongoing support for Ukraine in its three-year-long war with Russia.
“We watched your conversation with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy with horror and distaste,” the letter said.
“We consider your expectations regarding showing respect and gratitude for the material assistance provided by the United States to Ukraine in its fight with Russia to be offensive,” the letter continued.
“Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed blood in defence of the values of the free world.”
Trump and Vice President JD Vance laid into Zelenskiy during the meeting, driving relations with Kyiv’s most important wartime ally to a new low. The Ukrainian leader was told to leave, a U.S. official said.
The letter signed by Walesa compared the atmosphere during the meeting to that found in “interrogations by the Security Service and… in communist courts”.
It also called on the United States to fulfill the security guarantees given to Ukraine in 1994 after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
“These guarantees are unconditional: there is not a word there about treating such aid as economic exchange,” the letter said.
The U.S. embassy in Warsaw did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Poland’s current president Andrzej Duda said on Saturday that Zelenskiy should get back to negotiations with the U.S.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Sharon Singleton)
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