Voice of Ukraine

From: Douglas Landro

While rescue workers in Ternopil sifted through ashes, a different kind of devastation was unfolding in luxury hotels and secured conference rooms thousands of kilometers away. The war’s most dangerous weapon wasn’t falling from the sky—it was being drafted in Microsoft Word, and it bore the unmistakable stench of Munich 1938.

American and Russian officials had been meeting secretly for weeks, crafting a 28-point peace proposal that historians would recognize instantly. Steve Witkoff—Trump’s Special Envoy with no foreign policy experience but deep loyalty to the president—had spent three days in Miami from October 24-26 “huddled” with Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a key Kremlin diplomat. They were negotiating Ukraine’s future without Ukrainian participation, exactly as Chamberlain and Hitler had negotiated Czechoslovakia’s future without Czech representatives at Munich.

The parallels were so precise they could have been copied from 1938 diplomatic cables. Chamberlain forced Czechoslovakia to surrender the Sudetenland—its industrial heartland and defensive mountain fortifications—to Hitler. Trump’s plan would force Ukraine to surrender Donetsk and Luhansk—its industrial heartland and defensive Fortress Belt. Chamberlain demanded Czechoslovakia reduce its military to make it incapable of future resistance. Trump’s plan would cap Ukraine’s military at 50 percent of current strength. Chamberlain prohibited Czechoslovakia from receiving weapons from France and Britain. Trump’s plan would prohibit Ukraine from receiving long-range weapons capable of striking Russia.

The details, leaked to Axios and other outlets, read like Russia’s wish list wrapped in the language of 1930s appeasement. Ukraine would withdraw from the unoccupied portions of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, ceding cities along its defensive Fortress Belt that Russia has failed to capture after a decade of trying. The Ukrainian military would be capped at 50 percent of current strength and prohibited from acquiring “key categories of weaponry”—effectively disarming while Russia rebuilds and rearms without restriction. No foreign troops could deploy to Ukraine. No foreign weapons capable of striking deep into Russian territory could be provided. Russian would become an official state language alongside Ukrainian. The Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate would receive official status within Ukraine.

In exchange, Ukraine would receive “security guarantees” from the United States. Czechoslovakia had received security guarantees too. Britain and France promised to defend Czech independence after Munich. Six months later, in March 1939, Germany seized the rest of Czechoslovakia. Britain and France did nothing. The guarantees weren’t worth the paper they were written on, just as Trump’s guarantees would prove equally worthless when Russia—rearmed and reconstituted—launched its next invasion.

The Institute for the Study of War pulled no punches in its analysis: this plan amounts to “Ukraine’s full capitulation” and would “set conditions for renewed Russian aggression.” Chamberlain’s capitulation had done the same. By surrendering the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia lost its only defensible borders, its industrial capacity, and its ability to resist. By surrendering Donetsk, Ukraine would lose its main defensive line, critical industrial cities, and strategic positions that have cost Russia rivers of blood to approach. Hitler used his six-month reprieve to prepare for full conquest. Putin would do the same.

Dmitriev told reporters he felt “optimistic” because “the Russian position is really being heard” for the first time. Hitler had felt similarly optimistic after Munich, marveling at how easily Western leaders had abandoned their ally. Putin’s position—complete subjugation of Ukraine, permanent prohibition of NATO membership, severe military limitations, and effective veto power over Ukrainian domestic policy—was identical to Hitler’s position on Czechoslovakia: total domination disguised as reasonable compromise.

Meanwhile, Zelensky’s scheduled meeting with Witkoff in Turkey was abruptly canceled. The parallel to 1938 was exact: Czech President Edvard Beneš had desperately tried to participate in Munich negotiations. Chamberlain refused. The Czechs learned their fate from radio broadcasts, just as Zelensky was learning his from news leaks. Witkoff didn’t need to hear from Ukrainians—he’d already gotten his instructions from the Kremlin, just as Chamberlain had taken his from Hitler.

A White House official told Axios that Trump “believes that there is a chance to end this senseless war if flexibility is shown.” Chamberlain had used nearly identical language in 1938, speaking of “peace with honor” and “peace for our time” while returning from Munich with his worthless agreement. The official added that “the timing is good for this plan now” because of Russia’s “additional successes on the battlefield.” This too echoed Munich, where Chamberlain justified surrender by pointing to Germany’s military strength, ignoring that appeasement only made Germany stronger for the next war.

History offers a brutal judgment on Chamberlain. His name became synonymous with cowardice, weakness, and the catastrophic failure to stand against dictators when standing still mattered. “Appeasement” entered the lexicon as a term of contempt. Chamberlain’s umbrella became a symbol of willful blindness. He died believing he had prevented war; history remembers him as the man who guaranteed it by teaching Hitler that democracies would surrender rather than fight.

Trump was walking the same path, drafting the same betrayal, courting the same historical infamy. If he forced this surrender on Ukraine, history would remember Trump exactly as it remembers Chamberlain—as an ineffective, weak leader who chose temporary political convenience over the survival of democracy, who mistook a dictator’s tactical pause for genuine peace, and who guaranteed future wars by rewarding present aggression.

The cruel mathematics were clear: Russia was losing militarily but winning diplomatically. Its forces were advancing at footpace while suffering catastrophic losses. Yet American officials, eager to declare victory and move on, were drafting terms that would reward aggression, legitimize conquest, and guarantee future wars. They were repeating Chamberlain’s catastrophic mistake—mistaking Putin’s desperation for strength, Ukraine’s exhaustion for willingness to surrender, and appeasement for statesmanship.

History would remember November 19 for the missiles that fell on Ternopil. But it would also remember it as the day Trump’s administration began drafting America’s Munich moment—proof that even democracies that defeated Hitler can forget why they fought him.