We can only hope that this is Ukraine’s darkest hour
Donald Trump has a plan that Vladimir Putin likes
See updates through November 22, 2025, at end of post.
It very much looks yet again like Donald Trump’s plan for Russia’s war on Ukraine is for Ukraine to capitulate. According to a Cable News Network newsletter, “Trump seems to be trying again to bully Ukraine into accepting Russia’s punitive terms to end the war. The new US plan for ‘peace’ seems to be nothing more than the Kremlin’s wish list and is the latest example of Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff buying President Vladimir Putin’s concocted history lessons.”[1]
According to a Kyiv Independent newsletter, “Kyiv would be forced to cede Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, be obliged to recognize Russian as an official language, and remove restrictions on the Russian Orthodox Church, an organization closely linked to the Russian state and supportive of the war against Ukraine.”[2]
The latter newsletter mostly blames Steve Witkoff for reviving Putin’s maximalist demands yet again, saying, “The people involved — [Russia’s top economic negotiator, Kirill] Dmitriev and Witkoff — are both evil and clueless. They believe that the current situation is the best opportunity to once again attempt to force Ukraine to capitulate.” And despite White House claims, it appears neither Ukraine nor Europe have been consulted on this latest reiteration of an old, rejected idea that Volodymyr Zelensky is now even less able or willing to accept.[3]
Zelensky, who for the entire war I have thought to be the determined leader Ukraine needed, is now weakened, facing a ballooning corruption scandal involving his associates and a Russian infiltration into Pokrovsk, “a pivotal logistics hub early in the all-out war and a vital defense outpost later on . . . now on the verge of being lost.”[4]
Trump, an authoritarian himself, for whom law is whatever he says it is at whatever his whim is at the moment; who claims sovereignty in a way proposed in The Dawn of Everything, and is thus beyond moral or legal challenge;[5] and for whom anyone who doubts this is a traitor, for he is the state, is plainly most comfortable in the company of other authoritarians, like Putin, and is much too desperate for Putin’s respect and approval.
Zelensky may be unable to accept Trump’s terms but I fear that this will only mean that Trump cuts off arms to Ukraine yet again. We have feared that something like this might happen since Trump was re-elected. The CNN newsletter described Trump’s plan as “especially pernicious this time since the US is turning up the heat on Kyiv at a vulnerable moment.”[6] How about we just call it “especially pernicious.”
Update, November 21, 2025: It does indeed appear that the Donald Trump administration is attempting to shove a bad deal that even the Russians have not agreed to down Ukraine’s throat. According to the Washington Post, “The plan contains elements long pushed for by Moscow, including a full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the heavily fortified Donetsk region in the east of Ukraine, granting Russia full control of territory it has not been able to conquer in nearly four years of war.
“Russia would receive ‘de facto recognition’ of its control of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk, as well as of the areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia it has illegally seized, with the conflict in these regions frozen on the current front line.
“Ukraine would be forced to enshrine in its constitution that it will not seek to join NATO Western alliance, while agreeing to significantly reduce the size of its armed forces from the 800,000-850,000 military personnel to 600,000.” Ukraine must “sign on to its new peace proposal by Thanksgiving or lose U.S. support.”[7]
“In addition, the proposed settlement would bar the presence of any NATO troops on Ukrainian soil, effectively nixing European proposals to send troops to deter Russia from attacking again.” Which is to say that the security guarantees Ukraine would receive in exchange[8] are meaningless.
Update, November 22, 2025: Anne Appelbaum follows the money on this—more aptly called—Ukraine war deal and guess what? She finds a lot of it, benefiting unnamed entities, surely Russian oligarchs and the Donald Trump family[9] but, we have to suspect, other U.S. oligarchs as well. Which is pretty much par for the course in an aconstitutional broligarchy.
[1] Stephen Collinson to Meanwhile in America list, “Turbulent days ahead,” Cable News Network, November 21, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/newsletters
[2] Oleksiy Sorokin to WTF is wrong with Russia? List, Kyiv Independent, November 20, 2025, https://kyivindependent.com/newsletters/
[3] Oleksiy Sorokin to WTF is wrong with Russia? List, Kyiv Independent, November 20, 2025, https://kyivindependent.com/newsletters/
[4] Oleksiy Sorokin to WTF is wrong with Russia? List, Kyiv Independent, November 20, 2025, https://kyivindependent.com/newsletters/
[5] David Graeber and David Wengrow, Dawn of Everything (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2021).
[6] Stephen Collinson to Meanwhile in America list, “Turbulent days ahead,” Cable News Network, November 21, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/newsletters
[7] Siobhán O'Grady et al., “U.S. pushing Ukraine to sign peace deal by Thanksgiving or lose support,” Washington Post, November 21, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/11/21/ukraine-war-peace-proposal-witkoff-thanksgiving/
[8] Siobhán O'Grady et al., “U.S. pushing Ukraine to sign peace deal by Thanksgiving or lose support,” Washington Post, November 21, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/11/21/ukraine-war-peace-proposal-witkoff-thanksgiving/
[9] Anne Appelbaum, “Cui Bono?” Open Letters, November 22, 2025, https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/cui-bono