The Oscars, Tinseltown’s most glamorous night, unfolded with its usual blend of glitz, humor, and moving performances. But the more than three-and-a-half-hour telecast Sunday steered clear mostly of political discussion, only referring to the continuing war in Ukraine-Russia once, during a week dominated by political angst about the war.
First-time host Conan O’Brien made light of it, taking a sarcastic swipe at the Donald Trump administration. Quoting the film “Anora,” in which a Brooklyn prostitute battles her Moscow oligarch in-laws, O’Brien joked about the excitement of seeing someone stand up “to a powerful Russian.”
“Anora” was the clear winner of the night, taking home five awards, including Best Picture. O’Brien’s acceptance speech was met with thunderous applause from the audience, proving the film’s poignant themes.
The comic relief followed a dramatic White House sit-down on Friday, where Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky disagreed in a rare on-camera confrontation. The tension mounted as Trump and Vance excoriated Zelensky as being ingratitude and disrespectful of U.S. military assistance, while Zelensky demanded security guarantees as part of any peace deal.
Trump had in the last several weeks spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and announced that shortly the war-ending negotiations would commence, surprising both the European Union and Zelensky. Russia has since celebrated the fight between Trump and Zelensky, praising Trump’s reversal of U.S. policy while slamming Zelensky for rebuffing the former president’s overtures.
European leaders have rallied to Zelensky’s defense, labeling Russia’s 2022 invasion as an imperial land grab. Putin frames the conflict differently, as an existential struggle against a declining West that he asserts has humiliated Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall by pressing the advance of NATO and moving on Moscow’s presumed sphere of influence.
Russia now controls nearly one-fifth of Ukraine, approximately 113,000 square kilometers, and Ukrainian forces have reclaimed about 450 square kilometers in the invasion of the Kursk province, according to open-source war maps and Russian estimates.
