Americans involved in the Ukrainian war effort are embarrassed and dismayed by Donald Trump’s continuing pressures on Kyiv and think his administration’s latest peace plan is tantamount to backstabbing and another catastrophic failure of US foreign policy.
“Complete bullshit and a betrayal by Trump,” said an American special forces veteran who has helped train and advise the Ukrainian military since the full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022. “But are you even surprised?”
Last week, a 28-point piece-plan reportedly drafted by Steve Witkoff, a Trump envoy negotiating with Kremlin adviser, Kirill Dmitriev, was leaked to the press and then revealed to be an apparent repackaging of Vladimir Putin’s maximalist demands on Ukraine.
As soon as Russian bombs were dropping on Kyiv in the early breaths of the war nearly four years ago, thousands of foreigners – soldiers, veterans, trainers, medics and others – poured into Ukraine to help defend what was largely seen as a collective defense of democracy against naked imperialism.
Among those international volunteers were hundreds of Americans, if not thousands, many of whom were and are Republicans who’ve had trouble squaring the animosity Trump has with the country they help. Voices in the GOP have also railed against Trump’s latest demands on Ukraine, with Don Bacon, a Mississippi congressman, describing it as “gross buffoonery” and “pushing a surrender plan on Ukraine” that “looks like Russia wrote it.”
“Follows Russia’s talking points almost to the letter,” said the same source, who called Witkoff a “Russian sycophant”.
He continued: “I’m worried they really are getting forced into this one. But too much blood has been spilled. I don’t think Zelenskyy can take anything close to that deal if it means giving up territory and giving up its own sovereignty to make decisions like joining Nato or the size of the military.”
Confusion has also surrounded who exactly wrote the alleged peace plan, with Republican senator Mike Rounds claiming at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia last week that secretary of state Marco Rubio called it a preliminary offer from the Kremlin, which Rubio quickly and publicly denied.
Another American working in the defense sector in Ukraine, agreed the latest news of a peace plan was another chapter in the tumultuous relationship between Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but told the Guardian he felt bad for the diplomats at the Kyiv embassy, who he described as not “Maga” and “motivated but totally handcuffed.”
Steve Andre, a Michigan-native who served in the Ukrainian military as a press officer and is now in Kyiv re-enlisting, thinks it’s an example of the US’s decaying global interests, something he has seen first-hand for years in Ukraine.
“The administration doesn’t want to take the time and figure out what is actually happening here in the country,” he said. “I’m disappointed in the American people. If they had even an eighth of the bravery and willpower of the Ukrainians, America might still be a great place.”
Major concessions in the plan are being asked of Ukraine. Namely, completely ceding the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, constitutionally affirming it will never join the Nato alliance, and severely cutting the size of its military and arsenal.
A Nato veteran who trains Ukrainian soldiers alongside former US servicemen says money is motivating the US government and called the plan “pathetic”.
“I think they believe that they can get the kind of payout that Cheney and Rumsfeld did, by doing business with Russia while trying to control all of the ‘recovery’ efforts here,” he told the Guardian, referencing the rapprochement efforts with the Kremlin during the Bush years.
He described the US trainers and veterans of the global “war on terror” he trains with as “pretty angry” and long, “resigned to losing US support.”
“Trump’s [administration] is full of idiot boomers who’ve never dealt with actual stakes in their entire lives,” he said. “I’d say they’ve cooked up some idiotic peace fantasy, but I’m certain they are aware of what surrender means for us.”
