If you want it bad, you get it bad. That pretty much sums up the past couple days for President Trump’s Special Envoy, Steven Witkoff, and Jared Kushner. They seemingly just passed along Russia’s latest demands in the form of a 28-point peace plan to Ukraine.
Backdoor communication channels and meetings between Wifkoff, Kushner and Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev suddenly became a November surprise when the plan was leaked to the media.
The leaked plan has Team Trump struggling to get its story straight. If you’re explaining, you’re losing, as the expression goes, and the White House is doing both, while pressing Ukraine to accept a plan that accommodates pretty much all of Russia’s demands.
U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, Gen. Chris Donahue, Commanding General for U.S. Army Europe and Africa; Lt. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, Commanding General for the Security Assistance Group–Ukraine; and Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer were dispatched to Kyiv to apply pressure on Zelensky and his generals.
The message delivered by Driscoll was that “if Kyiv does not sign the deal, it will face a much worse deal in future,” adding, “There’s no such thing as a perfect deal, but it needs to be done sooner rather than later.”
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The deal Driscoll is referring to mostly aligns with Moscow’s maximalist demands placed upon Ukraine to end the war. Specially, Ukraine will not be permitted to join NATO (point number seven) and NATO forces will not be stationed in Ukraine (point eight), Russia’s reintegration into the global community (point 13), Russia retains possession of the illegally annexed territories and Crimea (point 21), and Ukrainian elections will be held within 100 days (point 25).
Point number 26 adds insult to injury, providing “full amnesty for [Russian] actions” — that is, flagrant war crimes during the war. Ukraine would have to agree “not to make any claims or consider any complaints in the future.” This essentially cleans the slate — like it never happened.
That is a tough pill to swallow. To basically capitulate — especially when you have the capability to win and but the support you need is just beyond your reach.
After receiving an ultimatum from the White House to accept the deal by Thanksgiving Day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to his nation: “The pressure on Ukraine is enormous. And our country may soon be faced with a very tough choice: sacrifice our dignity, or risk losing a key partner. Accept a complicated list of 28 demands, or face a winter that could be the harshest … a life without freedom, without dignity, without justice. A life in which we are asked to trust those who have already attacked us twice.”
U.S. history is full of examples of perseverance and determination in the face of insurmountable odds. Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe’s response to the German surrender ultimatum at Bastogne during World War II was ‘nuts.’ During the Korean War at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, then-Lt. Col. Lewis “Chesty” Puller famously said, “We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things.”
Both generals held on, and when support arrived, took the fight to the enemy and won.
Divide and conquer is a familiar tactic that employs divisive measures to “make a group of people disagree and fight with one another so that they will not join together against one.”
The Kremlin is pretty good at this tactic, and the West seemingly takes the bait every time. The 28-point peace plan was likely leaked to the media by Dmitriev — and the effect was immediate.
The Kremlin undoubtedly was pleased.
Team Trump went on the defense, Europe went into the reaction mode, and Ukraine absorbed yet another unfounded rant on Truth Social by a frustrated president who cannot get Russia to stop attacking, and has chosen instead to threaten to withhold weapons and intelligence to get Ukraine to stop resisting.
Republicans and Democrats in Congress fired back at the White House.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said, “It rewards aggression.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) added, “We should not do anything that makes [Putin] feel like he has a win here.”
“Putin has spent the entire year trying to play President Trump for a fool,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) commented. “If administration officials are more concerned with appeasing Putin than securing real peace, then the President ought to find new advisors. Rewarding Russian butchery would be disastrous to America’s interests.”
European leaders were alarmed, calling the document a “draft” that will have to be amended to incorporate their demands. On Sunday, Britain, France and Germany provided a point-by-point draft counterproposal with suggested changes and deletions.
But the leaked plan likely represents Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands from the August summit in Anchorage. Despite Europe’s weekend surge, or Zelensky acceptance to a 19-point cease-fire deal drafted by the U.S. and Ukraine, Russia is not likely to accept the counterproposal.
Why would they? Putin believes he is winning. He is driving the negotiation process, and the U.S., Europe and Ukraine are reacting to his demands. He believes he can outlast Ukraine’s onslaught of deep strikes designed to cripple his economy and his military’s potency. He believes his ground forces will eventually wear down Ukraine’s defenses — despite their horrific losses of nearly 1,000 casualties a day. Victory is within his grasp.
That belief is likely predicated on Trump’s public disinterest in the war and Europe’s unwillingness to go it alone without the U.S.
As leaders from the U.S., Europe and Ukraine await the Russian response to their counterproposal, Moscow continues to bomb residential neighborhoods and energy infrastructure in Kharkiv and Odessa. Nothing has changed.
Late Monday afternoon, Putin received his own Thanksgiving surprise. Dmitriev was outed by a Bloomberg news report that said he principally authored the 28-point peace plan.
The killing stops when Russia stops attacking. An unwillingness to force Russia to that end state — by the U.S. and NATO — is the issue. Appeasement of Russia is not the solution. The answer is getting Ukraine the support it needs to win, as it was with McAuliffe, Puller, and General George Washington.
