As families across America prepare to settle in for turkey, stuffing, and football, the Trump administration is imposing a brutal choice on the people of Ukraine: capitulate by Thanksgiving, or lose U.S. support.
If the bloodiest fighting in Europe since World War II is to come to an end, any peace plan must be fair and hold Russia accountable for invading its neighbor. The 28-point plan released last week and endorsed by the White House would enshrine injustice instead.
Perhaps the only surprise about the lopsided peace proposal is that it took so long. Ever since Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, it has often felt like an all-out push for Kyiv’s surrender is just around the corner.
Meanwhile, the situation on the ground has deteriorated.
Ukrainians have taken to covering their streets and homes with anti-drone nets due to the Russian military’s “human safari” tactics. Russian drone operators have terrorized civilians and aid workers by attacking them indiscriminately, making simple errands dangerous in cities close to the front lines.
Russia’s military, fueled by the conscription of ethnic minorities, convicted criminals, and Ukrainians from Russian-occupied territories, has made incremental gains. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military has suffered from increasing rates of desertion and low morale. While most Ukrainians do not want to give up territory to end the fighting, this position has become more popular over time because of the suffering and devastation the war has unleashed.
American support for Ukraine has reached new lows under Trump, but President Joe Biden bears much of the blame for what’s happening today. The past administration never supplied Ukraine with anything close to the kinds of weapons it needed to succeed in the war’s early stages. Instead of rushing F-16 fighter jets into the country, Biden held off on delivering them for years. Long-range missiles, which would have allowed Ukraine to strike deeper into Russian territory, were also delayed.
The Trump administration seems prepared to compound this betrayal by forcing Ukrainians to accept a peace plan that some U.S. senators have suggested was written by Moscow.
As released last week, the plan would force Ukraine to cede territory, abandon hopes of joining NATO, and cap the size of its military. It would create a blanket amnesty for war crimes and allow Russia to rejoin the G8 and reintegrate into the global economy.
Given the scale of the suffering in Ukraine’s towns and cities and along the front lines, peace is a crucial goal. Beyond the direct human toll, the war has also led to the destruction of the Khakhovka Dam on the Dnieper River, a major environmental disaster. Russian recklessness has also repeatedly endangered nuclear plants.
Zelensky and European leaders have countered the plan with one of their own, which was immediately criticized by the Kremlin. Ukrainian negotiators are keen to avoid formally handing over territory, remove or raise the cap on the size of their military, and allow for eventual NATO membership, even if it is off the table in the foreseeable future.
U.S. efforts to end the war should be more in line with its allies’ proposal, instead of fulfilling Putin’s wish list. If Trump sides with Russia, it will send a clear message to other authoritarians that the West will not stand together against illegal aggression.
If America sells out Ukraine, the world will be watching.
As your recent editorial noted, the central sticking point in negotiations between City Council and the mayor on the best and fairest way to focus limited housing funds appears to be how to divide that pie between the neediest and those who have just a little bit more. One way of addressing this dilemma is to increase the size of the pie. This could be done, not by borrowing more, which would just jack up the already eye-popping amount we’ll have to pay back in interest, but by utilizing resources from the city’s $8 billion pension fund. For decades, our neighbors in New York City have directed 2% of the investments by their pension fund to local housing. As a result, the fund has produced almost 100,000 affordable units. One of the groups they invest in is the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, whose sole purpose is to invest public and union pension funds in the construction and rehabilitation of housing. Let’s get some of our pension fund’s billions working here in the city, and reap the rewards of more affordable housing for all.
I am troubled by potential funding cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency. I want my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to live on a planet where the air is safe for them to breathe, where fruits and vegetables are safe for them to eat, and where the water is clean and safe to drink. I’m sure all of you want the same. If we don’t do something immediately, the generations after us will not be able to turn things around because of the terrible things we have done — and continue to do — to the earth’s air, water, and soil. Our planet, and everything on and around it, needs our protection.
Please write your senators and representatives and ask them to make clear their strong support for the EPA when funding decisions are being made.
Becky Comer, Gilbertsville
Review resign-to-run rule
We should press for a no vote on City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas’ proposed amendment to the resignation-to-run rule. If Thomas gets his way, Council members would be allowed to stay in office while running for state or federal elections.
This is just a step toward eventually letting city officials stay in their official capacities while running for another city office.
How about letting them use their own money, or campaign funding, to support their efforts while campaigning for a higher or different office?
Or maybe a compromise could be that they wouldn’t be paid their city salary if they run for local, state, or federal elections?
Michael Miller Jr., Philadelphia
Abortion stance unbrotherly
I was both shocked and disheartened to learn that the City Council of Philadelphia, where I was born and raised, has recently passed a resolution declaring abortion a “human right.” This decision prompts serious reflection on the meaning of human rights and who they truly protect.
Human rights, by their very definition, are meant to be universal and encompass all individuals, including the unborn child. These children in the womb are among the most vulnerable members of our community, yet they have become the victims of an industry that regards the termination of their lives as necessary for controlling population growth in our city.
In light of this, I propose that our City Council consider a new resolution: to remove the long-standing moniker “City of Brotherly Love” from Philadelphia. It is a contradiction to celebrate brotherly love while simultaneously excluding and disregarding the rights of the most defenseless among us. How can we claim to embody brotherly love if we do not extend it to every member of our population?
Patricia Dowling,Philadelphia
Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.
This is not to say people of color aren’t getting city business. The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) said what it calls “minority, women, and disabled business enterprises” received more than $370 million in city contracts in fiscal year 2023.
The city’s goals call for 35% of city contracts to be awarded to businesses owned by women, people of color, and people with disabilities. During the 2023 fiscal year, 31.4% of city contracts went to companies owned by people from those demographic groups.
However, Black-owned businesses only accounted for about 13.5% of all city contracts.
So why don’t participation goals work better for Black people? I believe the answer is simple. Bias and race-based exclusion are built into a system where money is plentiful but accountability is not.
Ryan Boyer, the head of the city’s building trades unions, speaks at a January news conference. Although Boyer now leads the group, the unions spent generations excluding Black people, Solomon Jones writes.
That leaves the city asking white-owned businesses with largely white workforces to meet minority participation goals set by the Office of Economic Opportunity.
According to a former manager in the OEO, who would speak to me only on the condition of anonymity, companies that don’t meet the goals rarely face consequences.
That’s been the case for years. In fact, I wrote a 2016 Inquirer column that noted that in the 2015 fiscal year, nearly 70% of city-funded construction projects with budgets over $250,000 did not reach the city’s participation goals for people of color, and 44% had no participation by people of color at all.
Very few were held accountable for it then, and very few are held accountable now.
But even if the goals didn’t deliver what they should have, it’s galling to lose them at a time when the president is pushing an anti-Black agenda, complete with policies that led to job losses for over 300,000 Black women during his first year in office. Sadly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
But this is about more than the president’s recent actions. This is about Trump’s long game. From Road-Con Inc. v. City of Philadelphia, which challenged the city’s minority set-asides, to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to kill affirmative action, the multipronged attack is not just meant to set precedents. This attack is meant to set us back.
That’s why, when we see our civil rights gains under attack, we want our leaders to stand and fight.
I asked Mayor Cherelle L. Parker if changing the minority participation goals to small and local business goals represented the kind of fight our community wants from her.
“I am 53 years old,” she said, “and I have been working in government and public service since I was 17 years old. I don’t know anyone in this city who knows me who has ever questioned whether or not I’m willing to fight for what I believe in. I’m a product of this city. You heard me reference the intersection of race and gender. But I thank God that I’m made and built from the kind of material that says a speech is not enough. You have to deliver tangible results.”
The mayor went on to say the community should hold her accountable. I agree, and we will.
But I am also one of those people who have known the mayor for years. She is indeed a fighter, and she’s fighting this her way. We only need one thing from her: a win.
Now and then, we still see the Amish horse and buggy tooling its way down Fairview Road. Occasionally, someone will alert their neighbors in a Facebook post that a cow or a horse has escaped a pasture and is blocking the road. “That’s so Glenmoore,” a local resident will chime in nostalgically.
But Glenmoore, like the rest of America, is changing, in ways both obvious and subtle.
It’s rare now to see a horse travel down a road that has a steady flow of traffic. Where cows once used to escape to sip the water of the branch of the Brandywine Creek that flows through the part of town residents call “the village,” you can look up a hill and see the large homes of the newest development, just one in an array of luxury homes built on the hill.
Don’t get me wrong. Wallace Township (the Glenmoore postal area is significantly larger) is still pretty amazing. It’s Glen Moore Fire Co. members lined up in a row at a funeral inside one of our historic churches to honor the wife of a longtime member. It’s Pete the cat walking his people to the elementary school on days when it’s in session. Some of my best friends are people I’ve met on walks, often punctuated with a stop at the village coffee shop, the Mean Bean.
The Chester County poll book debacle in the Nov. 4 election didn’t help nurture a sense of calm about something many of us had taken for granted — the sanctity of our vote. In case somehow you missed the hubbub, when independent and third-party voters (there are approximately 18% of us) got to the polling place, we were told that, because they hadn’t gotten the right poll books for us, most of us would have to cast provisional ballots.
I was aware of others in my position. We kept checking to see if our vote showed up on the Voter Services website. As of last Monday, resident Dorothy Kirk, an independent, said, “I am skeptical that our votes were counted.” It took almost 15 days to register Kirk and her husband’s votes on the Voter Services website.
Unlike some other townships in our environs, which have become increasingly blue, Wallace voters are registered as more than 50% Republican, and have been for many years.
This year, we already had more of a local stress test: a competitive race for one seat in the three-member board of supervisors — replete with candidate websites, campaign literature, and canvassing. That’s a lot of drama for our relatively small (less than 3,000 registered voters) township.
Call me naive, but knowing the local judge of elections, I had confidence my vote would count.
But it wasn’t long before I started to hear from other residents. Let’s just say, they had questions.
Tish Molloy, a former Wallace poll worker, spent a few hours observing the ballot certification process in West Chester after the election, curious to see how it was done. Though onlookers could not see everything, she said, the workers seemed to be “careful, cautious, and mindful,” as well as efficient.
Though Wallace Supervisor Rob Jones, serving as a Republican, had some pointed comments about the potential for mismanagement at the county level, he said he didn’t think anything “nefarious” had occurred. “I just think we have a basically honest populations out there,” said Jones. “I do think the county learned a lesson.”
As for the township? Jones was ready to move on from what was a fairly heated campaign by Wallace standards, urging neighbors in this small community to avoid viewing each other through a political lens. “The way you show love for people with your township is through what you do. When I make a decision [about the township], I don’t care what their party is. How can I bless the most people in the township?”
Though he came closer than other Democratic candidates in recent memory, Andrew Holets conceded the supervisor’s race to Republican candidate John Thomas last Friday evening. Perhaps it’s not surprising, in a town where so many people know and depend on each other, that his vision is similar to that espoused by Jones. Building trust isn’t just up to leadership, he said. It’s about practicing kindness and doing the right thing.
“Everybody has responsibility,” said Holets. “How they wake up and how they spend their day makes a difference in how much we care for ourselves and others. I don’t want to buy into the division that seems to be here in our country. I don’t think we need to have that locally.”
Nonetheless …
The bonds of mutual trust and affection are still pretty strong around here. At the same time, it’s hard not to wonder what else could go wrong, and it’sarrogant to think ourselves immune from the polarization that has divided neighbor from neighbor and family from family.
While it’s up to Chester County to rectify its mistake, the future of our community is also, as both Jones and Holets said, in our hands. We can’t afford to assume our neighbors trust us. We have to renew those bonds together, one act of service, citizenship, and kindness at a time.
We’ve had our shot across the bows. Now it’s up to us to make sure we get safely to harbor. The cost of drifting is way, way too high.
Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans is a freelance journalist in Chester County. Her writing has appeared in Religion News Service, the National Catholic Reporter, Sojourners, Christian Century, the Washington Post, and The Inquirer.
I went through Army basic training in April 1972 at Fort Dix in New Jersey, which was after My Lai, when American soldiers, following orders, murdered unarmed, helpless women and children and the elderly. Those orders were not lawful, and “just following orders,” as the defendants at Nuremberg said to justify their behavior, was not a valid excuse.
As soldiers, we were taught that we had a duty to question — and even resist — unlawful and unconstitutional orders. At a time when our service members are following orders to kill unknown people in boats with no due process, and at the same time the military is being used in our cities to intimidate and punish political enemies, there are, and need to be, limits.
John W. Haigis,Darby
. . .
The Nazi war criminals, after World War II, invalidated the so-called Nuremberg defense of “just following orders.” Courts held that following illegal orders is a crime.
My basic training as an Army officer clearly delineated a spectrum of legal and illegal orders. It was emphasized, in unambiguous terms, that not only is it permissible to disobey illegal orders, it is an unequivocal duty to do so. Officers are particularly obligated to protect their subordinates from illegal orders.
Orders to commit murder, torture, theft, rape, overthrow the U.S. government, oppress U.S. citizens, violate the Constitution, or conspire with enemies of our nation are illegal and prohibited by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Today, civilian and military leaders ignorant or disdainful of the U.S. military’s constitutional duty are ascendant. American military personnel deserve to be reminded that members of the U.S. armed forces are obligated to conduct themselves in legal ways at all times. Violations of this standard put them at risk for prosecution and punishment.
Finally, there is no duty of loyalty to any commander, military or civilian. Legal orders must be followed, of course, but U.S. military personnel swear loyalty to the Constitution only. Leaders who confuse or coerce subordinates on this issue violate their oath.
Mike Shivers,Altoona
Missed opportunity
We’ve grown accustomed to the president’s hubris and insulting rhetoric. This was evident again last week when he showed clear disdain toward a female journalist with the dismissive “Quiet, piggy!” comment. While such behavior has, regrettably, come to be expected from him, the lack of response from the surrounding journalists is far more troubling.
Not one of them defended their colleague or, more forcefully, repeated the question that provoked his outburst. Instead, they simply “moved on” to their own priorities, seemingly focused on maintaining access rather than demonstrating solidarity.
When journalists turn a blind eye to this kind of misogynistic bullying, they are, in effect, capitulating to the bully. Their silence creates a dangerous precedent: It signals that such conduct is tolerable and carries no immediate professional consequence. This inaction undermines the core mission of the press — to hold power accountable — and normalizes personalized attacks over policy engagement.
The press corps has a collective duty. Moving forward, fellow journalists must step up to defend “one of their own.” Only a unified, vocal response can reaffirm the dignity of their profession and uphold the standards the public deserves.
David Rendell,Haddon Heights
Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.
Apparently, time really does heal all wounds — even those caused by the bone saw of a murderous prince and his personal goon squad after they hacked an intrepid Washington Post opinion journalist into pieces for speaking the truth about a corrupt and contented regime.
It’s hard to believe now, but there was actually a very brief time — in 2018, to be exact — when corporate America and even some political leaders pretended to have enough morals to resist this stone-cold killer with bags of money: Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS.
It wasn’t just Oval Office-bound candidate Joe Biden who’d promised (falsely) to make MBS “a global pariah” after the CIA stated the obvious: that the crown prince was behind the barbaric murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Six years ago, some of the nation’s top business leaders — like the CEOs of J.P. Morgan Chase, Ford, and Uber, and Donald Trump’s billionaire pal, Stephen Schwarzman — abruptly ditched a high-profile Saudi investment forum, and a few businesses totally cut ties with the oil dictatorship.
In 2025, any pretense of “corporate social responsibility,” let alone shame, in America’s C-suites is as outdated as dial-up internet. Schwarzman — who canceled his 2019 flight to Riyadh but not his Blackstone Group’s lucrative ties to the Saudi wealth fund — toasted MBS at a White House dinner Tuesday night, as did Ford CEO William Clay Ford Jr.
But then it would probably take less time to list which high-profile captains of American industry didn’t show up to fete MBS on his first official visit to Washington since that brief unpleasantness of — in the infamous words of Monty Python — bickering and arguing over who killed whom.
Trump fawned over Ronaldo while hosting Saudi Crown Prince MBS at the White House—a celebrity-studded dinner masking an alliance with authoritarianism and oil money. pic.twitter.com/78SFAaiUBh
The world’s sometimes richest human and Trump’s best frenemy Elon Musk, CEO of $5 trillion corporation Nvidia, Jensen Huang, GM head honcho Mary Barra, computer mogul Michael Dell, Big Oil titan Mike Wirth of Chevron, and many others all donned tuxedos or glitzy gowns to hoist a glass for the butcher of Istanbul and his host, the Unabomber of Caribbean fishing boats.
They gorged themselves on pistachio-crusted rack of lamb (a defenseless sacrificial sheep presumably also carved up with a bone saw), flecked with green nuts in some kind of communal transubstantiation with the blood-stained petrodollars they were really there to devour.
The ravenous CEOs included Tim Cook of Apple, apparently suffering from a bout of amnesia after his 2019 post-Khashoggi promise to look into Apple’s hosting of a Saudi app that allows men to track the movements of their wives and daughters (it’s still there), and apparently also unburdened, as the nation’s most prominent LGBTQ business leader, by the Saudis’ occasional executions of gay men.
The candlelight of the gilded East Room also revealed budding media mogul David Ellison, whose toasting of Khashoggi’s killer told us a lot more than any Beltway punditry about the moral fiber of the journalism that the Paramount Global boss plans for his new plaything, CBS News.
It felt more than fitting that the biggest buzz in a room larded with the billionaire men (and they were mostly men) — all so aggrieved by the short-lived #MeToo push — was for soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who during the 2017 peak of that movement fought off charges he sexually assaulted a woman in a Las Vegas hotel room. Ronaldo — who abandoned the hallowed pitches of European football to make billions on an obscure Saudi squad — was in many ways the essence of a room doing ethical backflips for the almighty petrodollar.
For one appalling night, the East Room became a capitalism megachurch where the donation plate was filled with the paper-thin pledge card of MBS’s vague promise to invest $1 trillion (we’ll see about that) on United States soil. But the Scriptures didn’t mention the record number of executions carried out by the Saudi regime, including the June death of journalist Turki al-Jasser, who tweeted criticism of his nation’s rulers and was reported to have been beheaded by a sword, MBS’s preferred method of (literally!) capital punishment.
Trump today on MBS and the killing of Khashoggi: "Things happen. But he knew nothing about it."
US intel under Trump in 2018: "The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi." https://t.co/2jDm9Fh0eJ
The MBS banquet was such a depraved and decadent ritual that it wouldn’t have been surprising if the Fortune 500 executives had broken out in satanic chants as if they were characters in a wretched Dan Brown sequel to The Da Vinci Code.
This was an orgiastic celebration of death — not just the literal state murders of Khashoggi, al-Jasser, and other journalists and dissidents hacked to death so the Saudis can keep their fossil fuels flowing, but also the death of press freedom, the death of the make-believe era of “woke corporations,” the death of democracy, and — worst of all — the death of a planet.
It didn’t seem an accident of timing that the American president and our elite ruling class was sharing their couverture mousse pear dessert with the world’s other top oil producer at the very moment the efforts of the global community — albeit without serious support from the United States, Saudi Arabia, or Trump’s other blood brother, Russia — to fight climate change were imploding at the failed COP30 summit in Brazil.
Even the amoral MBS and his Saudi regime — which is actually investing heavily in solar and other forms of clean energy — is taking the already-here crisis of global warming more seriously than Trump’s America, where his MAGA government is racing to cancel large-scale wind and solar projects and drill for oil off our endangered shores. This is what corporate America blessed when it broke bread at Trump’s White House.
In a New York Times essay, foreign policy expert Noah Shachtman wrote that “instead of trying to separate from the Persian Gulf petrostates, Mr. Trump is reshaping America to look more like them: top-down, iron-fisted, resource-rich and more than willing to flash those resources as weapons.” The leaders of Apple, Nvidia, GM, and Citibank have embraced this. This is what modern fascism looks like.
And yet, in bowing down to the petrostate mentality and all the grotesque corruption that comes with that, corporate America is also celebrating yet another kind of death: their own. The Saudi mindset, now fully embraced by the Trump regime and its billionaire obeyers, is a race to cash in — because oil, like life itself, is finite.
Rep. Vindman calls on Trump to release post-Khashoggi murder call with MBS
“The American people and the Khashoggi family deserve to know what was said on that call. If history is any guide, the receipts will be shocking,” Vindman said on the House floor. https://t.co/4Ob7WGDDQl
Tuesday’s pagan feast was ultimately a celebration of denial — denial that their guest of honor was a murderer, denial that the never-ending pasta bowl of petrodollars won’t last, denial that they’ve given up on saving the world from drought and floods and probably mass death. And denial that their 21st-century gilded age is about to crash down on them faster than the rubble of the East Wing outside their window.
Deep down in the queasy, lamb-fed pit of their stomachs, America’s CEOs know it. So does Trump. The most corrupt president in U.S. history and his family have fully embraced the grafty zeitgeist of the Saudi gold rush, from his son-in-law’s $2 billion investment windfall to a planned Trump Organization real estate development.
The art of the crooked deal was partly behind the president’s Oval Office crude dismissal of a reporter’s Khashoggi question. “Things happen,” he said, implying it was a shame what happened to the Post columnist who must have fallen off the back of a truck — an answer that reeked of organized crime boss bravado that was actually masking real fear.
Because Lordy, there are transcripts. Virginia U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman, who was a White House aide at the time of Khashoggi’s 2018 murder, joined with the journalist’s widow to urge the release of the text from what the now-congressman called a “shocking and disturbing” phone call between the first-term Trump and MBS in the immediate aftermath.
Indeed, it seemed all too appropriate that the Oval Office questions for Trump and MBS blurred between those about the Khashoggi butchery and about the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal, because in so many ways, they are the exact same story. It is the story of America’s rich and powerful and their narcissistic avatar at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. pursuing their innermost desires — whether that’s oil-tainted riches or 14-year-old girls — before the wrecking ball comes for them.
This wasn’t a state dinner, but it was a state funeral for a billionaire class whose gusher is rapidly running dry.
How do Ukrainians fight on when the front line is so painful, the Russian bombing of civilians so brutal, and pro-Putin President Donald Trump so eager to stab Kyiv in the back?
I put that question to Associated Press journalist and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, whose 20 Days in Mariupol won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2024. His new masterpiece, 2000 Meters to Andriivka, will premiere on PBS’s Frontline and also begin streaming on Tuesday, Nov. 25.
The film follows a unit of military volunteers in Ukraine’s fabled 3rd Assault Brigade who come from all walks of life, from young to middle-aged. They are trying to advance a little more than a mile along a narrow, mostly destroyed tree line between heavily mined fields,in order to liberate a small village in eastern Ukraine and help cut a Russian supply line to the then-besieged city of Bakhmut.
This is a raw film, shot from the soldiers’ point of view, not only by Chernov and his AP colleague, videographer Alex Babenko, but by the video cameras many fighters wear on their helmets.
“I wanted to be as realistic as possible,” Chernov told me. “Showing courage and sacrifice, but also how horrifying and disgusting war is at the core. We try to keep this paradox in the film.”
What Chernov also achieves, through his voice-over and brief interviews during downtime, is a portrait of why these men won’t stop fighting, no matter the odds, until the Russian aggressor is forced to recognize the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state.
Mstyslav Chernov speaks at the premiere of “2000 Meters to Andriivka” during the Sundance Film Festival at the Ray Theatre in Park City, Utah, in January.
When he started this film in 2023, Chernov said, he wanted to make a documentary “about fighting back.” That was a hopeful year, in which Ukrainians were mounting a large counteroffensive against Russia.
“I searched for hope as much as any Ukrainian,” he recounted. “Raising the flag as a symbol of victory.” He also sought to honor the sacrifice of 3rd Assault Brigade fighters who were liberating the area surrounding his hometown of Kharkiv.
By the time the film was completed, though, the counteroffensive had failed. Bakhmut had fallen, and Ukrainian forces were weary and undermanned.
Today, technology has shifted the battlefront into a war of attrition dominated by drones, which can inflict terrible casualties on anything that moves. The Russians are making small advances, and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is fending off a corruption scandal.
Yet, says Chernov, what you see in 2023 is similar to now.
The reason Ukrainians keep fighting remains the same, even though many Americans don’t grasp it. “It is a fight for survival, not for a piece of land, but a fight for your life,” he told me. “Stop and you are dead, or fight and you have a chance to survive as a country and with your family.”
These are the basic truths President Trump and real estate mogul-turned-peace negotiator Steve Witkoff are far too blinkered to grasp.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (foreground), Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev (second left), and Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov (left) arrive to attend the talks with Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow in April.
Russia’s war is not about real estate deals or land swaps. VladimirPutin has insisted publicly for years that Ukraine has no right to exist as a state, and that it must be returned to the Russian empire as a subordinate province.
Any peace plan that hands territory to Russia and fails to provide ironclad military guarantees to Ukraine will only encourage Putin to restart the war. Yet, Witkoff secretly devised a 28-point draft plan with Putin pal Kirill Dmitriev, without consulting Kyiv or our European allies — a plan that leaves Ukraine virtually defenseless.
This capitulation plan would hand Russia parts of Ukraine that aren’t occupied, while shrinking and largely disarming Kyiv’s forces — and banning the purchase of new Western weapons. It would also ban Ukraine’s future membership in NATO or any peacekeeping troops from NATO members.
Of course, Putin has endorsed Trump’s plan, which could have and may indeed have been, written in the Kremlin. This shameful document virtually invites the Russian dictator to rebuild his depleted forces and try to end Ukrainian sovereignty for good.
We already know what has happened in Ukrainian territory that Russia has occupied: the Ukrainian language is banned in schools and from official use, and Ukrainian books are burned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is banned, and its priests arrested.
Ukrainian children in areas under Russian rule are taught that Kyiv is the enemy. They are sent to military camps in Crimea or Russia, and then drafted to fight against fellow Ukrainians. Many younger children have been kidnapped and adopted by Russian families.
Kobzar, a Ukrainian serviceman, practices shooting in preparation for the next military operation of the 3rd Assault Brigade. Five months later, he would be killed.
“If Ukrainians lose,” said Chernov, “not only will Ukraine cease to exist, but it means millions of Ukrainian children will be taken, their Ukrainian identities stolen, and they will be trained to fight for Russia against Europeans. It creates the opportunities for Russia to get more people to fight.”
“Many people in the U.S. don’t grasp how destructive the Russian narrative is,” the filmmaker added, “how they say the U.S. is the archenemy. Reality can be seen in the Russian media. They laugh at the United States and love the idea of civil war in your country.
“Russian existence [under Putin] is based on an anti-American narrative. What you see is that they are already at war with the United States and Europe.”
Indeed, if Ukraine ultimately falls to Russian control — with Trump’s help — the Russian border will move westward, and many NATO countries will be in danger.
Trump doesn’t care.
Wooed by visions of U.S.-Russian business deals that have been dangled by Dmitriev, Trump and Witkoff are focused on dollar signs. Like a mafia don, Trump is blackmailing Zelensky to sign this surrender by Thanksgiving, or lose all U.S. support for the war.
Yet, unlike Trump, Ukrainian soldiers on the front don’t have the luxury of denying the harsh realities they face if Russia isn’t pushed back by force.
Every soldier I’ve met knows full well that if Russia wins, they and their families have no future. The Kremlin calls brave Ukrainian fighters “Nazis,” and regularly tortures and murders POWs. Under Kremlin rule, any veteran or army member would almost certainly be targeted for prison or death.
Ukrainian servicemen from the 3rd Assault Brigade at frontline positions near Andriivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, in 2023.
So, as Chernov explained, the question of future international aid for Ukraine’s defense “is rarely discussed on the battlefield, because there were so many words of support but so little action. They know they have to fight for survival.”
After the first meeting of Zelensky and Trump, when the president scolded the Ukrainian leader before the cameras, all illusions were gone, said the filmmaker. “We know the truth of our situation. The only person you can rely on is right next to you or with your unit.”
The changing nature of the war means the future depends on which country — Ukraine or Russia — can beat the other in the race for technological advantage. “Until Russia feels it can lose they will not want peace, Chernov stated. ”We are bracing for a very long winter.”
And yet, despite his depiction of the brutality of an unending war in a film that left me in tears, Chernov retains a core of optimism. Drawing strength from the men whose steadfastness he captures with his camera.
“Seeing those guys, fellow students, policemen, workers being there, making that choice to fight back against all odds. When I watch them …” He paused. “Whenever I lose hope, I go to the front, and I get my hope back.”
Mellisa Wilson had been working hard — so, so hard — to change the trajectory of violence that marked her life and the lives of her five children when she saw something that broke her heart.
Her youngest daughter was putting her baby doll to bed, “and she was hitting it,” Wilson said, choking back tears. “That’s when I knew it was really bad. That’s when I knew that wasn’t what I wanted them to take from me,” as a parent.
And so, Wilson did what she had done many times before.
She turned to the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center (CCTC) for help.
In schools, homes, and community centers in Philadelphia, Montgomery County, and Camden, CCTC provides trauma-informed care annually to over 3,500 children, up to age 18, suffering from behavioral issues, depression, and trauma, helping their families in the process.
“I knew I had to do something different,” Wilson said.
Wilson, a CCTC volunteer and a member of the center’s parent advisory council, had been bringing her children to CCTC, a nonprofit children’s mental health agency, for 20 years.
With all the counseling she and her children have received, she could easily give the same talking points as CCTC’s chief executive officer, Antonio Valdés.
And she did.
It may take years, she said, but when a child experiences trauma, at some point, sooner or later, there will likely be a behavioral issue.
Wilson said she grew up in a home where she was regularly beaten with a broom handle or an extension cord. “Those were my grandmother’s favorites.” The trauma repeated itself across the generations when she became a mother.
Mellisa Wilson, who now volunteers at the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center, said the group helped her realize she needed to end a generational legacy of corporal punishment as a parent.
Always angry, she yelled at her children and spanked them, but only with her hands — at least she could give them that safety.
But all of it had to end — for her own good, and for theirs. So she turned to CCTC for help.
It’s a typical pattern, said Valdés.
CCTC treats children who have experienced every kind of trauma and adversity — death of a parent, witnessing a parent be killed or beaten, attacks from dogs, sexual abuse, neighborhood violence.
“We treat kids no matter what trauma they have,” he said. “For the vast majority, we’re talking about domestic violence, toward them or a family member, or maybe shootings they have witnessed.”
But what’s just as significant, he said, is how CCTC treats everyone in its care. “It’s the lens we use,” he said, describing trauma-informed care. “We don’t ask what’s wrong with a child. We asked what happened.”
For example, Valdés said, a young boy, maybe 5, sees his mother regularly beaten by her drunken boyfriend. “The kid may even try to intervene, but he’s only 5. What can he do?”
Eventually, the mother gets rid of the drunken boyfriend. All seems normal until months or even years later, when she gets calls from school. Her child is fighting, destroying school property.
“He’s still reacting to what he witnessed, and the behavior he developed at that time,” when he understood, as only a little child can, that his mother, the person who was supposed to be protecting him, couldn’t keep him, or herself, safe, Valdés said.
Says Antonio Valdés, chief executive officer of the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center: “We don’t ask what’s wrong with a child. We asked what happened.”
“Any moment he might feel even a little threatened evokes that response,” he said.
“There’s a mistaken belief that young children, when they experience trauma, they’ll get over it,” Valdés said. “When trauma and adversity happen, there are normal consequences. It’s not normal for the kid to be OK.”
Some parents bring their children to CCTC for counseling, or they get referrals from schools. More help, including a summer camp, is available at satellite community centers.
At its headquarters on Delaware Avenue in Fishtown, CCTC runs a day treatment program for preschool-age children who have been kicked out of their preschools. There are day programs for children who have been discharged from psychiatric hospitals to help them reacclimate before returning to their schools.
CCTC also provides behavioral health help at over 40 middle and elementary schools, where CCTC staffers work with teachers and students.
Valdés remembered one little boy, about 10 or 11, who had been an average student — no trouble in school. His mother worked two jobs to make ends meet, and his grandfather took care of him, fed him dinner, helped with homework, and even put him to bed when his mom worked late.
One Monday, the boy didn’t come to school — and it was so unusual that counselors reached out. On Tuesday, he did show up and, within hours, was fighting with kids and teachers. “They had already written up detention slips,” and it was so bad that harsher punishments were on the table.
But then a counselor who had been trained by CCTC recalled what she had learned and asked the boy what happened. His grandfather had passed away on Saturday, and his mother had to go to work so she could pay the rent, leaving him to fend for himself.
“In five minutes, they tore up the detention slips and had a different kind of conversation. It could have turned into something really bad for that boy. It’s those little moments that are critical,” Valdés said.
In Philadelphia, he said, children in Kensington are suffering from the opioid crisis. When children leave the house, they see people shooting up and have to step carefully to avoid human feces or used needles. It’s not safe to play on the sidewalks or in the parks.
“All of these things add up to a stressful environment,” he said. “There’s an impact of trauma and adversity on the way people start treating each other. It’s a behavior that’s adaptive to the trauma, the crisis, the ugliness,” but may not show up until later.
“It’s highly contagious. Certain kinds of maladaptive behaviors may find themselves in families, in communities, in workplaces, or the way you might treat your girlfriend or wife,” Valdés said. “These behaviors were critical in surviving the moment,” but aren’t useful or appropriate in other situations.
Healing comes from reframing — acknowledging realities but assuring the children that what happened was not normal and not their fault, then giving them techniques to cope positively when disturbing feelings arise, he said.
“We’re treating kids and families, and we’re helping them heal,” he said. “Then they start to support their siblings or neighbors who have been through trauma. We see this as the counter to adversity and trauma.”
Parenting skills Wilson learned at CCTC helped her help her children and regain control of her family, even as she was struggling to manage five youngsters under 5, including a set of twins.
One child was inappropriately touched. Another child pushed Wilson against a wall and accused her of driving their father away. Another child, always her father’s favorite, said her father hated her. Another child hit a kitten.
Tears filled Wilson’s eyes. “That was the trauma I put on them by hitting them and yelling at them.”
Chaos and fatigue were constant, as was anger, yelling, and spanking. At CCTC, her kids got help, and so did she, learning new parenting techniques that led to a peaceful home with five children, now in their 20s and heading into professions to help others.
Valdés said people should support CCTC because that healing is contagious, mending families and neighborhoods.
Wilson agrees. “What I’ve learned, I’ve put into practice,” she said.
Her story is so compelling, she said, that people at her overnight warehouse packing job turn to her for help. And she’s always ready to give it.
“My favorite place is on the bus,” she said, where she’ll say hello and ask her fellow passengers about their day. “People will start talking to me. People are very honest when they think they are never going to see you again.”
When Wilson wears her CCTC T-shirt as she often does, she wants to serve as a walking billboard for a nonprofit that has made a real difference in herself and her family. She vows to support the organization and its mission for the rest of her life.
“We shouldn’t keep good things to ourselves.”
This article is part of a series about Philly Gives — a community fund to support nonprofits through end-of-year giving. To learn more about Philly Gives, including how to donate, visit phillygives.org.
For more information about Philly Gives, including how to donate, visit phillygives.org.
About Children’s Crisis Treatment Center
Mission: To support children and families by helping them heal from abuse, violence, and trauma by bringing mental health services to them where they are — at home, in schools, and in their communities.
Children served: 3,500
Point of pride: Started as a demonstration project in the basement of the Franklin Institute and is now in over 40 schools, up from 14 last year.
Annual spending: Over $31 million in fiscal year 2024.
You can help: Volunteers are needed to help with special events, the Holiday Toy Drive, or group day-of-service activities.
The recent government shutdown was initiated by a Democratic Party trying to protect the 22 million Affordable Care Act participants from the financial impact of ending government subsidies that would more than double insurance premiums. Conversely, Republicans are intent on sunsetting COVID-era ACA subsidies that cost $30 billion per year. What both parties will acknowledge is that the cost of healthcare coverage continues to accelerate at a rate that is unsustainable.
When President Barack Obama crafted the ACA, he envisioned a public option. A public option is healthcare provided by the government. That means government hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, technicians, and administrators. During the incubation of the ACA, the Obama administration realized a public option was far too controversial to be passed by Congress. So it birthed an insurance-based ACA that would use the existing U.S. healthcare structure. The problem is that medical costs and insurance premiums have far outstripped inflation since the passage of the ACA. The ACA has little control over these costs, and therefore, government subsidies are the only option to mitigate the impact on those among us who are most vulnerable to price increases. We cannot depend on the private sector to control the costs of healthcare. ACA government subsidies are a short-term solution. Donald Trump’s direct payments will do nothing to mitigate healthcare’s accelerating costs. Like it or not, the United States will have to implement a public option to control costs and provide a healthcare safety net. The current course and speed are simply unaffordable and will contribute to bankrupting the country.
Here’s the good news: We can use the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare infrastructure as the base on which we can make the public option a reality. The VA currently provides service to over nine million vets at a cost of $68 billion a year. There are over 170 VA medical centers, 1,300 outpatient clinics, and other sites. This is a start. Compare that with ACA subsidies of $138 billion in 2025 before factoring in the average individual annual cost of $7,428 (in 2025). Yes, this is a national health system where the government can control healthcare costs. Yes, this will reduce one’s healthcare choices. Yes, this will be an affordable healthcare safety net alternative to the current unsustainable and unaffordable healthcare system.
William F. Spang Jr., Philadelphia
Art of deflection
After the horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration announced that Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq, had weapons of mass destruction and needed to be removed. Thus, the ensuing Iraq War, the removal of Hussein, the loss of over 100,000 civilian lives, and 4,400 American troops, only to discover there were no such weapons of mass destruction. Further investigation determined George W. Bush had plans to attack Iraq even before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Why? Iraq contained massive reserves of oil.
Fast-forward to 2025, and the Trump administration is beating the war drums against Nicolás Maduro and Venezuela. Claiming it is responsible for the flow of fentanyl, the president has launched dozens of airstrikes against supposed drug boat smugglers without evidence or with congressional input. New measures are being planned for possible attacks within Venezuela and perhaps boots on the ground. “I have not ruled out using troops,” Donald Trump recently asserted. Our largest aircraft carrier has been stationed just off the Venezuelan coast. Venezuela happens to have the largest oil reserves in South America. There is scant evidence that Venezuela is involved in drug smuggling, unlike neighboring Colombia and its infamous drug cartels. Why no military actions against it? As the Epstein files near release and flagging poll approval numbers, Trump desperately needs a diversion. Venezuela could be just the ticket. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Let’s not be fooled again.
Angus Love,Narberth
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