You're reading: Hundreds press White House for more support of Ukraine

Several hundred Ukrainian-Americans and others of Eastern European descent rallied in front of the White House on March 26 to press U.S. President Barack Obama for greater support to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia's war.

Participants were bused in from as far away as Pennsylvania and Connecticut, but English professor Oksana Semenova flew in from New Hampshire.

“Thousands of people in Ukraine are dying and I live here, and I felt like I had to do something, whatever I can, to try to help,” she said.

Signs read: “Putin: Liar, Fascist, Murderer” and “U.S. Protect Ukraine with Your Military Power.” Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the war against Ukraine last year with the seizure of the Crimean peninsula followed by an invasion of eastern Ukraine with Russian forces and proxies. The fighting has killed more than 6,000 people.

Alongside the U.S. and Ukrainian flags flew the colors of NATO and Latvia.

One man carried the flag of Ukraine’s Aidar Battalion. Organizers said turnout might have been greater if not for rain earlier in the day, and if the event had not been postponed from March 5 due to severe winter weather.


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U.S House of Representatives member Bill Pascrell, Democrat of New Jersey, speaks to the rally for Ukraine outside the White House on March 26.

“The message is to implement the Ukraine Freedom Support Act,” said Michael Sawkiw, director of rally organizer Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. The law, signed by the president in December, authorizes lethal aid, funding and further sanctions against Russia.

U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell, Democrat of New Jersey and a co-sponsor of the law, told the crowd the U.S. should help kick Russia out of Ukraine the way it did the Soviets from Afghanistan.

“We must provide arms so the Ukrainian people can protect themselves,” he said, before leading a chant of “Hands off Ukraine.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, now director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, also called for lethal aid to Kyiv.

“It is in the vital interests of the United States deal [Russian President Vladimir] Putin a defeat in Ukraine,” he told the crowd. “In order for that to happen we need a clear policy that addresses all of Mr. Putin’s substantial vulnerabilities.”

Herbst advocated stronger sanctions, better military equipment for Kyiv and a heavier NATO presence in the Baltics.

“There is no excuse for the refusal of the United States to provide Ukraine defensive lethal weapons,” he said.

Herbst faulted NATO for a lack of leadership in recent years, and said the allies should position “serious Western military assets in the Baltic states to make it clear to Mr. Putin that he goes no further.”


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Participants of a White House rally for Ukraine on March 26 hold up signs saying “I am Ukraine” and “Is Budapest Memorandum just a piece of paper?” as several drape themselves with the Ukrainian flag.

Speaking to the Kyiv Post prior to his address, Herbst rejected the notion that U.S. arms would only inflame the situation. “That’s a very weak argument,” he said. “The Ukrainian people have already been subject to Kremlin aggression. The Kremlin has escalated its aggression half a dozen times in the past year as Ukraine has not received weapons.

The Ukrainian people are going to fight in any case, so they want the weapons.” That sentiment was widely echoed at the rally.

Galina Franken, a Washington, D.C., accountant, is a native of Zaporizhia who has been in the U.S. for 15 years. She pointed out that Russia has violated 1994’s Budapest Memorandum, guaranteeing the nation’s borders in exchange for Ukraine’s relinquishing of Soviet-era nuclear weapons.

“Now you cannot really tell Ukraine not to have nuclear weapons as well,” she said. “It’s really, really dangerous if nobody does anything about the situation. What Russia is doing now, they are trying to destroy the U.S. because it is the ultimate enemy.”

But Semenova, the University of New Hampshire professor of English as a second language, responded with a long pause when asked if she wanted the U.S. to provide arms even if it meant a wider war.

“It’s a tough question. I don’t know how to answer that,” she said finally. “What happens if we don’t support Ukraine and the war broadens no matter what? And then the same situation may arise at the border of Poland, at the border of the Baltics. That’s going to be the same kind of risk only many lives later. What is going to stop Putin?’”

Kyiv Post contributor William Ehart lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.