The moral blindness of the anti-Ukraine Right

Trump and his hangers-on have drifted into dangerous delusion

On Palm Sunday, as Christians marked the beginning of Holy Week, Russian forces launched a missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy. According to Ukrainian authorities, the attack killed at least 34 people and injured 117, including 15 children. This disgraceful missile strike was the deadliest Russian attack on civilians this year.

Almost as shocking as the massacre of innocents was the quickness with which the blame was placed on Ukrainian President Zelensky. In an interview with reporters, U.S. President Trump said: “You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”

“Millions of people are dead because of three people,” Trump said, naming Russian President Putin, former U.S. President Biden, and Zelensky.

Prior to this statement, Trump described the Russian attack on Sumy as “terrible”, but suggested it was a “mistake.”

Such attacks by Russian forces on civilians are not unfortunate mistakes, but deliberate war crimes. Time and again the Russian state has demonstrated that its real aim is to destroy the Ukrainian people either in whole or in part. From the Bucha Massacre to the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories, and the kidnapping of 20,000 Ukrainian children, the evidence of genocide is clear.

Despite what Trump and other politicians in the West may think, Putin is not interested in peace. He’s taken every opportunity to sabotage peace negotiations, breaking numerous ceasefires. According to Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Russia has violated a partial ceasefire covering infrastructure more than 30 times since it was announced in March, targeting critical infrastructure across Ukraine.

Despite these violations, and repeated Ukrainian requests for air defence assistance, Trump has not allocated any new aid packages and even briefly paused military assistance last month to pressure Kyiv into accepting a minerals deal.

For someone who claims to be a nationalist, Trump is strangely reluctant to appreciate that Ukraine is fighting a national liberation war – a war for national survival. To shift blame from the invader to the invaded is to whitewash one of the most openly imperial wars in modern history. Insisting that both sides are to blame is not hard-headed realism or clever diplomacy, it is moral blindness.

From calling Zelensky a dictator to blaming him for the invasion of his country, the Trump-aligned Right has drifted into dangerous delusion. Increasingly Trump’s followers are mirroring the worst aspects of the Far Left, with Trump-aligned politicians often repeating Kremlin talking points and disinformation. In 2022, for example, Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, endorsed Russia’s false claim that U.S. funded biolabs in Ukraine were creating deadly bioweapons to use against Russia. She has also argued that American assistance for Ukraine jeopardises global security by antagonising Russia.

The inability of the anti-Ukraine Right to recognise truth from falsehood is not only a threat to Ukraine, but to the entire West. If Russia was bold enough to launch an attack on NATO, would that also be a “mistake”? This is not a hypothetical scenario. Back in 2017, Trump took the side of Russia following the Skripal poisoning, casting doubt on Russia’s involvement. Here he mirrored the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn who also questioned the evidence that Moscow was behind the attack.

Similarly, much like the anti-Israel Left blamed Israelis for the October 7^th pogrom, the anti-Ukraine Right blames the Ukranians for being invaded, arguing that they provoked the war by aligning with Western interests – echoing Russian propaganda. Both extremes are symptomatic of the worsening moral confusion and anti-West sentiment within the West itself. Indeed, there are a growing number on the Far Left and Far Right who hate both Ukraine and Israel. Most disturbing of all in this phenomenon is inversion of morality altogether, where the aggressor is good, and the victim is bad. This is a complete reversal of the Harm Principle, which argues that individuals should not harm others and that actions should be judged based on their potential to cause harm—a principle rooted partly in Jesus' command to love your neighbour.

It is likely a result of the hyper-partisan U.S. Culture War that some conservatives who can easily condemn Hamas’ barbarity against Israelis find it difficult to condemn Russian barbarity against Ukrainians. Yet Trump’s desire to excuse or deny what is obviously true could also be a sign that Russian disinformation narratives have succeeded in dividing and subverting the West. The result of this is already becoming apparent as the U.S. and Europe drift further apart, with weaknesses in the EU and NATO becoming more apparent. This is worsened even more as America turns inward, alienating long-term allies with threats and bullying.

The current dire situation facing the West demonstrates the urgent need to put aside our differences and come together in unity. Appeasing Russia will only invite further aggression down the line. Furthermore, it will demonstrate to authoritarians around the world that might is right and invading sovereign nations goes unpunished.

Rather than siding with a foreign power that assassinates dissidents, jails priests, and bombs children, politicians of all colours must stand in solidarity with Ukraine as it fights for survival.