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By Chris Jennewein, Times of San Diego, a member of the San Diego Online News Association
Photo: Zelensky in 2022
March 2, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) - Rep. Mike Levin said President Trump effectively sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in the acrimonious meeting Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The meeting today between Presidents Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office was nothing short of an internationally embarrassing failure of American leadership,” said Levin, D-Dana Point, whose district includes Camp Pendleton.
“President Trump would rather side with a dictator than a democratic nation defending its freedom,” Levin said.
Zelensky had seen the meeting in the Oval Office as an opportunity to convince the United States not to side with Putin, who launched a bloody invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
Instead Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance laid into Zelensky, saying he showed disrespect to the United States. The Ukrainian leader was told to leave.
An agreement between Ukraine and the United States to jointly develop Ukraine’s rich natural resources, which Kyiv and its European allies had hoped would usher in better relations, was left unsigned and in limbo.
Levin said it is critical for the U.S. to stand with its European allies and Ukraine, and said Trump seems to want to turn over power in the world to Russia and China.
“I want to be clear: Putin is a murderous thug who illegally invaded Ukraine,” Levin said. “My grandfather and the Greatest Generation didn’t fight authoritarians in WWII to see the U.S. take the side of one today.”