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I'm Furious, and I Can’t Stay Silent About What I Saw Today

I don't share my opinion often, but tonight, I have to.

Aaron Parnas Aug 16

This evening, I come to you in a place of deep exasperation. Three years ago today, I began this work with a single mission: to tell the truth about what was happening in Ukraine as a Russian war criminal launched a major offensive against a sovereign nation that had done nothing wrong. On that day, my family in Kyiv was literally clinging to survival.

My little cousin slept under mattresses in a bathtub as bombs fell overhead. Those were the first days of Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine—a campaign of terror that followed years of aggression, beginning with the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Tonight, just over three years after Russian troops crossed the border, we have witnessed something I never thought possible: a war criminal, wanted by the International Criminal Court, welcomed to the United States of America. No threat of arrest. Smiles and handshakes.

If you were alive in the 1960s and ’70s, you might remember Walter Cronkite’s famous commentary on the Vietnam War—a moment when a journalist known for objectivity finally broke form to speak his mind. It changed public opinion. When I began reporting, I tried to follow Cronkite’s example—facts first, opinion second. Tonight, I’m breaking that tradition. Like Cronkite then, I cannot sit silently as history twists before our eyes.

The night of February 22–23, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced his so-called “special military operation.” Within hours, Russian forces surged across Ukraine’s borders, attempting to encircle Kyiv, besiege Kharkiv, and seize Mariupol—a siege that claimed thousands of civilian lives. In the years since, Russia has shelled towns, targeted civilians, and launched drones into cities from Ukraine’s westernmost reaches to the frontlines in the east. The experts predicted Ukraine would fall in 24 hours, maybe a week. They were all wrong. Ukraine fought back—and my family survived.

Which is why today’s spectacle is so deeply disheartening. This is not about party politics. This is about refusing to normalize a man responsible for genocide, kidnapping Ukrainian children, and erasing an entire culture—being greeted by the leader of the free world with applause and access to “The Beast,” the U.S. president’s armored vehicle, a privilege granted to very few.

I pray for the war in Ukraine to end. But Vladimir Putin does not want peace. A cease-fire is not peace—it’s a pause before the next attack. Whether tomorrow or years from now, he will push again. His goal is unchanged: all of Ukraine. Hillary Clinton recently said she would nominate Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize if he could secure a full Russian withdrawal from every inch of Ukrainian territory. I agree—if that happened, he might deserve it. But it won’t happen. Not because Trump might not want it, but because Putin will never agree. He wants more.

And, we saw that today. There was no deal reached between the two leaders. Donald Trump gave Vladimir Putin everything he wanted: he invited him to the United States without fear of arrest, allowed him in the Beast, and normalized his relationship with Putin. Meanwhile, no ceasefire deal. This is an abject failure for the Trump Administration.

I do not speak like this often—maybe never again. But this is too important. We cannot stay silent while a war criminal is treated as a legitimate statesman. We cannot let history forget what Ukraine has endured and continues to endure. I will keep speaking up.

And I ask you to join me. Subscribe, share, speak out. Truth still matters—especially when the world wants to look away.