Letter to the editor: Supporting Ukraine best for world

I traveled to Lviv and Kyiv, Ukraine, every year from 1994-2000 and helped to start a heart surgery program at the Lviv Regional University Hospital in collaboration with the Norwin Rotary Club, the Pittsburgh-based Tri-State Children of Chernobyl Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development.

We performed the first successful coronary artery bypass graft surgery there in 1996 with the goal of helping Ukraine transition from a communist health care system into a modern capitalist system (combination of government and private medicine). My Ukrainian colleagues desperately wanted to develop a country that was a Western European democracy as opposed to a Russian corrupt kleptocracy.

I returned to Kyiv and Lviv in 2019 and was astounded that a post-­communist wasteland had transformed into modern European cities. Putin could not stand to have a modern democracy on his borders and invaded in 2014 and 2022. No American would tolerate Putin’s dictatorship, and the Ukrainians are fighting as we would. They have beaten off the world’s third most powerful army, reduced its power by half, and will win with adequate support.

I have been devastated to see Putin’s rot infecting some of our politicians, and his disinformation infecting my fellow Americans. Supporting Ukraine fights evil and stabilizes the world. Denying support is a vote for Putin and tyranny.

Dr. Michael Culig

Shadyside

The writer is associate director of cardiac surgery at Westmoreland Regional Hospital.