Letters to the Editor | Aug. 19, 2025

It is not entirely accurate that President Donald Trump came away empty-handed from the Alaska summit. Although Vladimir Putin rejected a ceasefire, the indicted war criminal, in a masterful stroke of Trump’s ego, endorsed the narrative that there would be no war if Trump, not Joe Biden, won the 2020 election.

Putin’s embrace of Trump’s assertion goes beyond mere flattery; it’s a strategic move designed to give Trump an off-ramp in the negotiations because “It’s Biden’s war.” Knowing full well that Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine began long before the 2022 full-scale invasion, when its military invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, the Trump administration, for self-serving political reasons, is deliberately avoiding the hard truth: This is Putin’s war, not Biden’s, or Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Trump’s post-summit position is more in line with Russia’s, an adversary, than Ukraine’s, an ally.

Jim Paladino, Tampa, Fla.

Whose side are we on in the Russia-Ukraine war? The side of peace? At what cost? Moving to the middle rewards whom? How did that work for the Sudetenland? Where is the Western world’s defense of our promise in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 to protect Ukraine from an invasion? Wasn’t that supposed to be the equivalent of an Article 5 commitment by these United States for Ukraine?

Where are the consequences of “no ceasefire” at this moment? Leverage is needed on the Russians. Where are the tough sanctions on everyone who deals with these thugs?

The Russian economy is vulnerable. Why don’t we force a just peace and break this criminal behavior? Do we really have to relive another Neville Chamberlain moment? Where is the unanimous outrage at all of this? Where are the congressional voices about respect for human rights and economic might? How do you “tighten the screws” on a war criminal if you roll out the red carpet?

Gary S. Wegman, Oley, Pa.

America has now invited an international war criminal to meet with a convicted felon to decide on the fate of a genuine hero’s country. Can we sink any lower?

Judy Hughes, Blue Bell

I find the current inability to fund public transit disturbing. A recent essay noted the importance of mass transit in several European cities and described how public transportation was a net economic gain for those cities. It seems like the Republicans in the state Senate are always talking about the exodus of residents from the Keystone State — especially recent college grads and other young people.

If there is a core of younger people living in the Philadelphia area because of the many colleges and universities here, starving our mass transit system is essentially encouraging them to move elsewhere. Does it make any sense to drive more people away by slowly killing SEPTA?

I’m hoping the governor and various local and state officials will lock themselves in a room and not emerge until a reliable long-term funding mechanism for mass transit is established.

David Share, Philadelphia

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