Russia’s barbaric assault on Ukraine continues: A single Russian drone and missile strike on an apartment block in western Ukraine last week killed at least 31 civilians. Meanwhile, Russia is ramping up its campaign of sabotage in Europe: Polish authorities blamed the Kremlin for a Nov. 15 explosion on a rail line used to transport supplies to Ukraine. As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said recently, Europe “is not at war” but it is also “no longer at peace” with Russia.
The growing threat from Vladimir Putin’s despotic, expansionist regime calls for Churchillian resolution, unity and strength on the part of the transatlantic alliance. Instead, Neville Chamberlain-style irresolution and confusion reigns on both sides of the Atlantic. The situation is far more concerning in the United States than in Europe, with the Trump administration having seemingly endorsed, at least for now, a “peace plan” that would give Russia a victory at the negotiating table that it hasn’t earned on the battlefield.
The Europeans have stepped up, providing weapons and funding to Ukraine as U.S. support has dried up. The European Union has a plan to do even more by sending Kyiv some $200 billion in frozen Russian assets as a “loan” that would likely never be repaid. Obviously, given the current corruption scandal in Kyiv, safeguards on the disbursement of the money would be needed. But this is a vital — indeed, irreplaceable — source of funding that can keep Ukraine afloat for years. Yet tiny Belgium, where most of the funds are frozen, is wringing its hands and holding up the plan. There is no Plan B: Europe has to send the Russian funds or else Ukraine will run out of money. So why dither and delay?
As for the peace plan floated by the White House last week: The 28-point plan amounts to a holiday wish list from the Kremlin. It would require Ukraine to cede the entire Donbas region — even the parts that Russian troops have been unable to conquer — and to cut the size of its armed forces by roughly a third. Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO, and NATO would not be allowed to dispatch peacekeeping troops to Ukraine. Ukraine would hold elections within 100 days and “all Nazi ideology” would be “prohibited”; this is Kremlin code for toppling the Zelensky government. Russia isn’t being asked to limit the size of its armed forces or to hold elections; all the demands are on Ukraine.
What does Ukraine get in return? A separate draft agreement specifies that in the event of renewed Russian aggression, the United States could respond with “armed force, intelligence and logistical assistance, economic and diplomatic actions.” But the U.S. wouldn’t be compelled to do anything. Ukraine would be left to rely on a worthless Russian pledge of “nonaggression” — something it already promised in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
This isn’t a peace plan. It’s a blueprint for Ukraine’s capitulation. If implemented, it would turn this pro-Western, democratic nation, which has been courageously resisting Russian aggression since 2014, into a Kremlin colony.
Apparently, the odious proposal was hatched in secret meetings between Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s credulous peace envoy, and Kirill Dmitriev, the wily head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, who is dangling promises of lucrative Russian investments if the Trump administration will only end the war on the Kremlin’s terms. (The draft agreement speaks of “mutually beneficial” opportunities, including energy and artificial intelligence.) Ukraine and Europe were not consulted, and both are scrambling to make their voices heard in Washington.
Yet the White House is pressuring Ukraine to agree by Thanksgiving or else lose all remaining U.S. support, including, presumably, U.S. intelligence warnings of Russian missile and drone launches. This is a geopolitical five-alarm fire, with the only saving grace being that Trump could change his mind, as he has so often done in the past.
In August, Trump met with Putin in Alaska and afterward told European leaders that Ukraine would have to cede land it still controls to Russia. Alarmed European leaders rushed to the White House and convinced Trump to back off. Trump subsequently imposed sanctions on two Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, and even gave Ukraine permission to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike Russia for the first time.
The U.S. sanctions, combined with Ukrainian drone attacks, are reducing the funds available to back Putin’s war machine: Russian oil revenues have fallen 20 percent in the past month. Even India is weaning itself from Russian energy imports. It would be folly to remove the pressure now, when it is just starting to bite.
That is all the more the case because other recent developments favor Russia: notably, the corruption scandal currently embroiling Zelensky and the likelihood that the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk will finally fall to the Russian army after a lengthy and costly siege. From Putin’s perspective, Ukraine now might be weak enough to bow down before his maximalist demands. Trump apparently believes this too.
That is an illusion. While Ukrainians may be more divided than before about Zelenksy’s leadership and more willing to trade some territory for peace, they remain united in refusing to surrender. The Witkoff-Dmitriev pact is a victor’s peace, but Ukraine hasn’t been defeated. The Russian military has barely advanced since 2022, at a price of roughly a million casualties. But the Trump administration’s willingness to make peace on the Kremlin’s terms can only raise Putin’s hopes that he can win this war after all.
That is the worst possible signal to send at a time when the Russian threat to Europe has never been clearer or more ominous. It makes a wider war with Russia more, not less, likely. Europe needs to counter Trump’s appeasement by rushing frozen Russian funds to Ukraine without delay.
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