It takes a certain kind of conviction to pick up a rifle and fight Russian forces in Ukraine. I did that, without pay. It takes a different kind of conviction to undermine that same fight from thousands of miles away. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene does just that—relentlessly, and also for free. In her mind, she’s standing on principle. She wants the war to end. So do I. But we disagree, fundamentally, on what peace means, and on what it costs.
In a recent post, Greene declared: “Huge protests erupt in Kyiv against Ukrainian President Zelensky as he is a dictator and refuses to make a peace deal and end the war.” The claim is dishonest. These are not anti-war protests. They are pro-democracy demonstrations sparked by deep concerns over judicial independence. In July 2025, Ukraine’s parliament passed legislation consolidating oversight of its anti-corruption agencies under the Prosecutor General—a presidential appointee. President Zelensky defended the law as a wartime safeguard, citing recent arrests of Russian agents within those bodies. But critics, both inside and outside the country, worry it endangers the integrity of post-Maidan reforms and Ukraine’s long-term EU prospects.
This is what a democracy looks like in wartime: messy, volatile, and loud. Citizens marching in the streets is not a sign of collapse. It’s a sign of contrast—of a civil society capable of confronting its own government. That is what separates Ukraine from the authoritarian neighbor bombing its power plants and flattening its apartment blocks.
Greene believes that cutting off U.S. support will bring peace. It won’t. It will bring devastation. Ukraine, absent American backing, would be left without air defense, without artillery shells, without the basic means of survival. The suffering won’t stop. It will deepen. And the message sent to our allies—many of whom have structured their own defense policy around the assumption that America keeps its word—would be catastrophic.
It’s understandable that Americans are skeptical. We’ve been burned before. From Iraq to Afghanistan, our foreign policy legacy is stained with hubris, disillusionment, and retreat. But Ukraine is not that. This is not a forever war, not a vague counterinsurgency wrapped in slogans about freedom. It is a sovereign country defending its territory from a revanchist regime. The stakes are clear. The threat is real. The enemy wears a flag.
What Greene fails to grasp is that the very prosperity she invokes in her rhetoric—the idea of a strong, free America—was built through exactly the kind of engagement she now condemns. The United States didn’t rise by accident. During World War I, it was American capital that kept European democracies afloat. The Lend-Lease Act in World War II was a calculated investment that secured the Allied victory and America’s postwar leadership. The Marshall Plan rebuilt a continent—and created a global system in which U.S. interests could thrive.
Yes, Ukraine has corruption. So does every state emerging from occupation, from post-Soviet bureaucracy, from a history warped by Russian influence. But imperfection is not disqualification. Poland was once in the same position. With investment, security, and time, it became one of Eastern Europe’s most stable and prosperous democracies. Ukraine is walking that same road—except it’s doing so while under bombardment. That path is longer, steeper, and bloodier.
Greene doesn’t acknowledge that. Instead, she recycles Kremlin narratives: bioweapons labs, Nazis, a fabricated war on Christianity. I’ve stood in Ukrainian churches during Russian drone strikes. I’ve seen clergy prepare meals for displaced families and soldiers light candles between artillery barrages. There is no war on Christianity in Ukraine. This isn’t your annual Fox News panic about nativity scenes at the mall—it’s a real war, and churches aren’t being closed because of faith, but because some were co-opted as intelligence nodes by a foreign power. There is, however, scrutiny of Russian Orthodox institutions used as intelligence fronts. That isn’t persecution. That’s common sense.
I served in the International Legion. It was chaotic, often mismanaged, and full of contradictions. I lost friends because of poor decisions. I saw the cracks. But I also saw something else—a country that refuses to surrender. A nation that has rediscovered itself under fire. Whatever else this war is, it is not a lie. It is not a grift. It is not Iraq.
I’ve seen what happens when we abandon partners. I served in Iraq. I watched as America scaled down its military presence in Europe, only to rebuild it when Russia reasserted itself. I had an interpreter left behind in Afghanistan—tortured and likely killed. As a millennial veteran, I’ve spent most of my adult life watching America start fights it couldn’t finish, and walk away from the ones it should’ve seen through.
Many of the Americans I fought alongside in Ukraine were veterans of the Global War on Terror. We understood the cost of mistakes. We understood what it means to wear the uniform of a country that invades, lectures, then withdraws. Greene and others in the so-called chaos caucus didn’t just misunderstand our mission—they trivialized it. They made us explain to our Ukrainian comrades that not all Americans are this cynical. That not all of us are so quick to echo enemy propaganda.
We came, in part, for closure. We stayed because it mattered.
Ukraine is not perfect. But it is fighting—for its land, its people, and for the principles we claim to believe in. This is a rare moment where American interests and American values align. We don’t need to send troops. But we do need to send a message: that we still understand the difference between democracy and dictatorship. That we know appeasement when we see it. And that we are still capable of standing with those who refuse to be conquered.