The Offensive Absurdity of Suggesting That Ukraine Should Just Forgive Russia and ‘Move On’
Some questions aren’t just offensive.
They expose something deeper—something rotten at the core of the person asking them.
What if, just three years after 9/11, the President of France—a country that is an ally of the United States—stood in front of the world and said to President George W. Bush:
“Do you think you can forgive al-Qaeda?”
“Why don’t you forgive Osama bin Laden?”
“This whole thing could end if you would just find a way to make peace with him.”
Imagine the outrage. Imagine the reaction of the American people.
The sheer indignation at the idea that the burden of peace should fall on the victims, rather than the terrorists who had just murdered 3,000 innocent people.
Now, imagine the United States itself—a country that until very recently under Trump was considered an ally of Ukraine—saying the exact same thing.
Because that is precisely what Donald Trump is doing to Ukraine.
He isn’t asking Russia, the invader, the aggressor, the one committing war crimes, to stop.
He isn’t telling Putin to withdraw his forces, to stop bombing cities, to stop executing civilians, to stop abducting children.
Instead, he’s telling Ukraine—the invaded, the victim—to lay down its arms and “move on.”
It’s an obscene question.
A betrayal.
And it completely flips reality on its head.
But let’s go even further.
What if, just three years after 9/11, someone walked up to President George W. Bush and asked:
“Do you think you can forgive al-Qaeda?”
“Why don’t you forgive Osama bin Laden?”
“Why can’t you just get along with him?”
The absurdity of the question would be immediate.
The shock on Bush’s face would have said it all.
It would have been a scandal.
An outrage.
Just the suggestion of forgiveness for the masterminds of 9/11 would have been met with fury, disbelief, and moral condemnation.
Now, imagine 9/11 wasn’t a single event.
Imagine if, instead of one horrific terrorist attack, the attacks never stopped.
Imagine if, every single day, across the entire country, bombings, executions, and mass kidnappings were taking place.
Imagine if, instead of 3,000 deaths, the body count reached hundreds of thousands.
Imagine if entire cities were reduced to rubble.
Imagine if millions of Americans were forced to flee their homes—not just for weeks, but forever.
And then, three years in, someone asked the president:
“Why don’t you just forgive them?”
That is exactly what Donald Trump is asking Ukraine to do.
When Trump says, “Why can’t Zelensky just forgive Putin?” he’s not making a call for peace.
He’s demanding submission.
It’s a grotesque question.
It flips victim and aggressor.
It erases the scale of Ukraine’s suffering.
And it absolves the perpetrator of the crime while blaming the victim for resisting it.
Let’s put the scale of this suffering into perspective.
Ukraine’s pre-war population was about 40 million—roughly one-eighth the size of the United States.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, over 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed.
That’s the equivalent of 344,000 American troops dead.
More than 12,340 Ukrainian civilians have been murdered.
Proportionally, that’s like losing 98,720 American civilians to enemy attacks.
And the suffering doesn’t end there.
Over 14 million Ukrainians—one-third of the entire population—have been displaced from their homes.
In U.S. terms, that’s as if over 100 million Americans were suddenly made refugees.
And nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children—not soldiers, not politicians, but children—have been abducted by Russia.
Taken from their families.
Erased from their homeland.
This is what Trump is asking Ukraine to forgive.
But let’s go deeper.
If this question is so obviously ridiculous when asked about 9/11, why is it being asked about Ukraine?
It’s not being asked in good faith.
It’s a deliberate inversion of reality, designed to justify Russian war crimes while shifting the blame onto Ukraine for refusing to be conquered.
Because if the invader can be the victim, and the victim can be the problem, then truth itself no longer matters.
MAGA propagandists push the idea that Ukraine somehow provoked the war—because Ukraine dared to seek NATO membership, because Ukraine wanted to move toward the West.
But let’s be absolutely clear:
Ukraine didn’t invade Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine.
If Russia withdrew tomorrow, the war would end.
If Ukraine stopped fighting tomorrow, Ukraine would cease to exist.
Asking Ukraine to “forgive” Russia while Russian forces are still bombing their cities, murdering civilians, and occupying their land isn’t just offensive.
It’s obscene.
It’s like telling a kidnapped woman to forgive her captor while she’s still locked in the basement.
It’s like telling a man being beaten in the street to stop making a fuss and just let his attacker finish the job.
It’s a bad-faith distortion of reality, designed to make it easier to blame Ukraine for its own destruction while letting Russia off the hook.
The burden of peace is on Russia, the aggressor—not Ukraine, the victim.
So when Trump asks, “Why can’t Zelensky just forgive Putin?”
He isn’t asking for peace.
He’s asking Ukraine to surrender.
To die silently.
To stop fighting back.
And that is why this question isn’t just absurd.
It’s an insult.
