Biden’s bitter legacy on Ukraine
Being merely better than the alternative is not enough. Ukrainians have suffered terribly – and will in the future – due to the outgoing president’s selfishness and timidity.
Editor’s note: As we enter a new administration, we finish the last with a retrospective on the outgoing president’s legacy, using a personal story to illustrate our point.
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“There was no sign of any trouble,” 46 year old Natalia Stepanenko remembers, about the April morning that would change her life forever.
Like many others, her family was fleeing the Russian advance, seeking to get on an evacuation train from the hub city of Kramatorsk to western Ukraine.
Originally from the settlement of New York, in the Donetsk Region, her husband had called to tell her to take the children and leave. As she did, she burnt his military uniform, destroying evidence in the house that he served in the Ukrainian armed forces.
It was a sunny, unremarkable morning on April 8th, 2022. While Natalia and her daughter waited for the train, volunteers handed out tea and sweets.
“Delicious,” she remembers.
That’s the last clear memory she had.
“I turned around, and I don't understand what happened. When I came to, my ears were plugged, I was lying down for some reason,” she said.
And at first, there was “such silence, no sirens.”
That’s when the screaming began.

President Joe Biden leaves office with a checkered record on Ukraine.
There’s no doubt that Biden took steps to organize Western support for the country. He also showed personal courage when he visited Kyiv, the first American president to visit a war zone not controlled by the U.S. military. And he is right that, as he said in his final Oval Office farewell speech, Putin has failed in his effort to totally subjugate Ukraine.
But too often the United States under Biden’s tenure yielded to Putin’s threats, acting with excess caution while Ukrainians died or were gravely injured.
The United States failed to intervene more forcefully in the initial stages of the war, and declined to rally NATO to close the skies over Ukraine.
The lack of air defense in Kramatorsk in April 2022 was one of the results of this hesitation.
On that day, the Russian military used a deadly cluster munition on the crowded group of fleeing refugees at the Kramatorsk train station, killing 63 civilians and wounding some 150. Nine children were among the dead, and 34 among the wounded.
Natalia awoke to find that her daughter Yana didn't have any sneakers on.
It didn’t really click for her that Yana’s legs had been blown to shreds. It was an unfathomable nightmare. The station was covered in some kind of haze. Body parts lay all over the platform. Disfigured civilians lay motionless, covered in blood.
"Mommy, I'm going to die," her young daughter cried out.
She remembers telling Yana that this wouldn’t happen.
Some men came running over, put tourniquets on Yana and carried her away -- Natalia didn't know where. They also put a tourniquet on Natalia's leg, which saved her life. A man sat next to her and asked her not to close her eyes.
She lost consciousness despite her best efforts.
There’s a clear message in the results of American hesitancy: if the United States doesn’t stand up for democratic values, no one else is likely to lead. America remains an indispensable nation for freedom-seeking people all over the world – if we’re courageous enough to answer the call.
The Biden administration’s drip-drip-drip of aid to Ukraine, and the long delays for much-needed military equipment, hobbled Ukrainian efforts to kick the Russians out of their country. Every request was like pulling teeth, until the United States ultimately decided to provide the systems or permission.
Months, even years, of deliberation and bureaucratic wrangling, only eventually to yield: HIMARS, ATACMS, F-16s — and the permission to shoot into Russian territory. All sought by Ukraine, all eventually provided – a cat and mouse game that took too long and cost too much.
And then there are Biden’s personal faults: his selfish, unpatriotic decision to run for reelection despite a pledge to the contrary – and his lack of self-awareness about, or dismissal of, his declining mental faculties.
Rather than secure his legacy as a president who bridged a gap between his political generation and the next, Biden left his party in chaos when it became clear that his decline could no longer be hidden from the public.
The resulting electoral disaster yielded Trump – a candidate who fanned the flames of anti-Ukraine hatred in the Republican Party, and made stopping aid to the vulnerable country a cornerstone of his foreign policy platform.
Despite all this, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan claims Kyiv’s survival as a key Biden administration accomplishment:
“I believe that our legacy has already been substantially defined on Ukraine. And it can be defined in two words: Kyiv stands.”
Kyiv stands now, in 2025, not because of the Biden administration, but because of Ukrainian sacrifice during the early battles around the capital city. In fact, the vast majority of American military aid heralded by the Biden administration did not arrive until after the Ukrainians had already won the Battle for Kyiv in April 2022.
In hindsight the first tranches of equipment authorized by the White House in March 2022 were useful but not game-changing: Javelin missiles, grenade launchers, ammunition, body armor, medical equipment and radar systems.
It is obvious that Russia, not the United States, holds primary responsibility for this terrible war. But where Biden and his administration could have acted, they did so haltingly.
“[H]is approach was often too cautious and too hesitant, holding back on delivering the decisive support needed to tip the balance,” former UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps told Bloomberg recently.
The slow, viscous nature of the aid led to Ukrainian accusations which we hear frequently – that the United States isn’t committed to Ukraine actually winning the war, but instead harbors the sinister intention to use Ukrainian lives to weaken Russian military strength.
And then there are even more cynical takes.
“They don't do enough because it's probably profitable for them. A lot of weapons are produced all over the world and they have to be sold somewhere,” said Olena Khalimonova, who was also at Kramatorsk on the day of the attack.
She rushed outside to find her son, covered in blood, with 32 pieces of shrapnel in his body.
“There is a war, there is a market. Politicians don't care. They make money out of it,” she said.
While the Biden administration has displayed a genuine desire to help, they’ve lacked a decisive urgency to guide Ukraine towards victory.
“Part of the responsibility lies with [the United States],” Natalia said. “If they had helped us more, we would not have had so many deaths… They give and then they think about whether to give or not to give. And here people are dying. I think they don't care how many children die… how many have already been buried.”
When Natalia woke up, she didn't know what had become of her daughter. It turns out Yana had been taken to a succession of hospitals, ultimately ending up in Dnipro.
Natalia had shrapnel that tore into her colon, and lost part of her left leg.
Yana lost both of her legs, but like her, survived.
The two were united, and by August, her daughter had been fitted for two prostheses, and began rehabilitation in the United States.
Yana in rehabilitation in the United States, 2022:
Natalia marveled at her then-10 year old daughter's tenacity -- the child insisted on walking an hour a day to build her strength, when only prescribed 15 minutes of walking. She ultimately developed a passion for running, and ran in a charity marathon in Boston just last year.

But through it all, despite the kindness of American doctors and physical therapists and donors, Natalia reserves a special derision for American politicians who she doesn’t believe has done enough.
“Aren't they shown pictures of our ruined cities, our wounded children, our military men who are left without two legs, without an arm, without sight?” she asks.
“They either don't know or ignore it.”
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NEWS OF THE DAY:
Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.
TRUMP PLANS TO CALL PUTIN IN COMING DAYS: President-elect Donald Trump has instructed his aides to arrange a phone call with Vladimir Putin in the days following his inauguration.
According to CNN’s sources, the call will have one purpose: to discuss a face-to-face meeting in the coming months to try to end the war in Ukraine. Trump and his team are aiming for a settlement plan that could be implemented in the first months of his presidency.
Any personal meeting would reflect a sharp departure from Biden's approach. The outgoing president has not spoken directly to Putin in nearly three years. To what extent Trump plans to continue the Biden administration's strategy of providing Kyiv with weapons and intelligence remains to be seen.
OIL PRICES FALL AMID TRUMP'S LIKELY ACTIONS: Oil prices dipped on Monday amid speculation that Trump might ease restrictions on Russia's energy sector in exchange for progress on ending the Ukraine war. Market uncertainty surrounds Trump’s inauguration, with expectations of significant policy shifts. These include lifting a moratorium on liquefied natural gas export licenses. Despite recent sanctions on Russian oil impacting supply, analysts caution that any price gains could be short-lived depending on Trump’s actions.
UKRAINE-MADE AIR DEFENSE SYSTEM: Ukraine is working to develop its own air defense system as a deterrent against the Oreshnik missile, according to Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of the Ukrainian military. The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range Russian ballistic missile that can carry nuclear warheads, and Ukrainian intelligence estimates that Russia may have up to 10 such missiles. Current air defense systems are not able to shoot down the Oreshnik due do its high speed and altitude.
RUSSIANS RECRUIT WOMEN FOR THE WAR: Russia's so-called volunteer military units are increasing the number of personnel by recruiting women to join the Russian armed forces. The former head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin, said that the Russian Combat Army Reserve is recruiting specialists and unskilled men and women from all over Russia to participate in the fighting in Ukraine.
Cat of Conflict
Today's Cat of Conflict is a cute red furry cat Nastia and her sister saw in their village in the Vinnytsia region.
Stay safe out there.
Best,
Myroslava
This is too harsh a criticism of the President who constantly ran the gauntlet of Republicans lawmakers who failed to see the vital necessity to support Ukraine. Biden woke up Europe, and leaves Nato more unified and stronger, particularly the northern flank, with two powerful military establishments now inside Nato. Given the disappointing and abject weakness of Germany, and its dependence on Russian energy, Biden's accomplishments are much greater than the sour scolding tone of the retrospective column. When Ukraine could not stop or fight against the 2014 attack, no one in US policy circles could have predicted the degree to which Ukraine would fight in 2022. Ukraine deserved better, but as John Kennedy said 'life is not fair', and Ukraine paid the price so many times, with the USSR induced Famine in the 1930's; the Nazi and Russian fights back and forth its territory; Chernobyl; and the 2014 Russian attacks etc. As Yeat's said 'Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.' Biden saved Ukraine. Lets see what happens now.
As much as my heart hurts for what Ukraine has endured, this is a hasty judgment, one that I believe history will overrule.
There may be legitimate criticism of what Biden delivered in the one year before the invasion where Democrats controlled Congress. In hindsight, we recognize that that was the crucial time to arm Ukraine. But remember: no one thought the Russians would be crazy enough to invade. Furthermore, the pandemic was raging, NATO was in disarray, and the US was recovering from a coup. Have we forgotten this context?
This critique also forgets that as of January 2023, Democrats did not control Congress. For two years, the Republican majority in the House systematically slowed and blocked aid.
Another point of legitimate criticism is on the issue of air defense. The US should have provided THAAD, many more Patriots, and Hawks earlier on. The cost of those systems is enormous, so it would have had to be decided in 2022, before the Republicans took Congress...and that was before Russia was using missiles and glide bombs to devastate cities.
Next, this critique forgets that advanced weapons require training. F-16s are just beginning to be used because basic training *of a skilled pilot* takes over a year. Ukraine had few skilled pilots to spare. They require trained maintenance crews. US training resources are strained as it is, and that doesn't count the problem of language barriers.
Or Abrams tanks. They have complex, expensive supply chains. Ukraine begged for these. It turns out the Abrams have barely been a factor. Bradleys could have and should have been used earlier and in larger quantities, but as far as I know, Ukraine wanted Abrams, not Bradleys.
Finally, it fails to consider context. Compare US spending on Ukraine to what it spent on the Iraq and Afghan wars. Ukraine spending was in the general ballpark of what we spent to have our own troops fight those wars.
Is it proper to direct anger at the needless suffering Ukraine has endured against the main person who has tried to limit that suffering? Isn't it more appropriate to direct that anger primarily against Russians? And secondarily against their collaborators--Orban and Fico and the right-wing parties in the rest of Europe (except for Meloni)? And then against those who delayed aid--the Republicans and Scholz? And lastly against those civilians who could have contributed to Ukraine from their own funds, but were too selfish to do so?
What is the point of being angry at those who helped Ukraine? Especially now, while the battle is raging? We need every person focused on what he/she can do to help Ukraine win, to heal those who suffer, to sustain those who care for the children who are Ukraine's future.
God bless the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians who have been so generous with their private funds, the Poles and the Germans who have housed refugees, Finland and Sweden for joining NATO--everyone who has done *something* to help.
And may Putin and his criminal friends fall, and a better, truthful, and compassionate Russia rise from its ashes.