Lech Walesa's letter to Donald Trump
- Paweł Konzal
- Mar 5
- 4 min read
Dear Mr. President,
We watched the coverage of your conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski with dismay and distaste. We find your expectation of showing respect and gratitude for the material aid provided by the United States to Ukraine fighting Russia offensive. Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. They are the ones who, for more than 11 years, have been dying on the front lines in the name of these values and the independence of their homeland attacked by Putin's Russia.
We do not understand how the leader of a country that is a symbol of the free world can not see this.
Our dismay was also caused by the fact that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation reminded us of the one we remember well from interrogations by the Security Service and from courtrooms in communist courts. Prosecutors and judges under orders from the all-powerful Communist political police also explained to us that they were the ones with all the cards in their hands, and we had none. They demanded that we cease our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people were suffering because of us. They deprived us of our freedoms and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the authorities and showed no gratitude to them. We are shocked that you treated President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a similar manner.
The history of the 20th century shows that every time the United States wanted to keep its distance from democratic values and its European allies, it ended up endangering itself. President Woodrow Wilson understood this when he decided for the United States to enter World War I in 1917. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this, deciding after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that the war to defend America would be fought not only in the Pacific, but also in Europe, in alliance with the countries attacked by the Third Reich.
We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and American financial commitment, the collapse of the Soviet empire would not have been possible. President Reagan was aware of the suffering of millions of enslaved people in Soviet Russia and the countries conquered by it, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their sacrifice, in defense of democratic values, with freedom. His greatness consisted, among other things, in the fact that he unhesitatingly called the USSR the “Empire of Evil” and gave it a decisive fight. We won, and a monument to President Ronald Reagan stands in Warsaw today vis a vis the US Embassy.
Mr. President, material aid - military and financial - cannot be an equivalent for the blood shed in the name of the independence and freedom of Ukraine, Europe, and the entire free world. Human life is priceless, its value cannot be measured by money. Gratitude is due to those who make the sacrifice of blood and freedom. For us, the people of Solidarity, former political prisoners of the communist regime serving Soviet Russia, this is obvious.
We call for the United States to live up to the guarantees it gave with the United Kingdom in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, which explicitly included a commitment to defend the inviolability of Ukraine's borders in exchange for its surrender of its nuclear weapons stockpile. These guarantees are unconditional: there is not a word about treating such aid as economic exchange.
Lech Walesa, former political prisoner, Solidarity leader, former president of the Third Republic of Poland
Signatories:
Marek Beylin, former political prisoner, editor of independent publications
Seweryn Blumsztajn, former political prisoner, member of the Workers' Defense Committee
Teresa Bogucka, former political prisoner, democratic opposition and Solidarity activist
Grzegorz Boguta, former political prisoner, democratic opposition activist, independent publisher
Marek Borowik, former political prisoner, independent publisher
Bogdan Borusewicz, former political prisoner, leader of the underground Solidarity movement in Gdansk
Zbigniew Bujak, former political prisoner, leader of underground Solidarity in Warsaw
Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, former political prisoner, leader of underground Solidarity in Wroclaw
Andrzej Gincburg, former political prisoner, underground Solidarity activist
Ryszard Grabarczyk, former political prisoner, Solidarity activist
Aleksander Janiszewski, former political prisoner, Solidarity activist
Piotr Kapczynski, former political prisoner, democratic opposition activist
Marek Kossakowski, former political prisoner, independent journalist
Krzysztof Król, former political prisoner, independence activist
Jaroslaw Kurski, former political prisoner, democratic opposition activist
Barbara Labuda, former political prisoner, underground Solidarity activist
Bogdan Lis, former political prisoner, leader of underground Solidarity in Gdansk
Henryk Majewski, former political prisoner, Solidarity activist
Adam Michnik, former political prisoner, democratic opposition activist, editor of independent publications
Slawomir Najnigier, former political prisoner, underground Solidarity activist
Piotr Niemczyk, former political prisoner, journalist and printer of underground publications,
Stefan Konstanty Niesiołowski, former political prisoner, independence activist
Edward Nowak, former political prisoner, underground Solidarity activist
Wojciech Onyszkiewicz, former political prisoner, member of the Workers' Defense Committee, Solidarity activist
Antoni Pawlak, former political prisoner, democratic opposition and underground Solidarity activist
Sylwia Poleska-Peryt, former political prisoner, democratic opposition activist
Krzysztof Pusz, former political prisoner, underground Solidarity activist
Ryszard Pusz, former political prisoner, underground Solidarity activist,
Jacek Rakowiecki, former political prisoner, underground Solidarity activist
Andrzej Seweryn, former political prisoner, actor, director of the Polish Theater in Warsaw
Witold Sielewicz, former political prisoner, printer of independent publications
Henryk Sikora, former political prisoner, Solidarity activist
Krzysztof Siemieński, former political prisoner, journalist and printer of underground publications
Grażyna Staniszewska, former political prisoner, leader of Solidarity in the Beskid region
Jerzy Stępień, former political prisoner, democratic opposition activist
Joanna Szczęsna, former political prisoner, editor of the underground Solidarity press
Ludwik Turko, former political prisoner, underground Solidarity activist
Mateusz Wierzbicki, former political prisoner, printer and publicist of independent publications
Letter was published by Lech Walesa on March 4, 2025 here: