Friday, February 13, 2026

The US tried to use Ukraine's struggle with corrpution to force a bad deal

From the Obozrevatel:

"Trump thought Ukraine would agree to a new peace plan because of the "Mindich affair" – Atlantic 

Nadiya Danishchuk, November 28, 2025 

The "Mindich affair" played a role in the US's renewed pressure on Ukraine, attempting to force its capitulation so that Donald Trump could "end" another war by adding it to his list. Vice President J.D. Vance believed that this massive corruption scandal would force Kyiv to agree to the 28-point "peace plan" being drafted in Moscow. 

However, these "peace efforts" by Trump also failed, according to The Atlantic. 
 
The publication notes that despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's lack of direct involvement in corruption, Vance and other White House officials believed this would not leave the Ukrainians "in a position where they could resist a peace agreement." 
 
However, the Trump administration miscalculated..." 
 
From the Atlantic publication itself:
 
"In the list of campaign promises from Donald Trump, the one about the war in Ukraine stood out for the number of times he repeated it—“I’ll have that thing ended in 24 hours”—and for the undeniable way he failed to deliver... Still he continues to try. But his efforts have not resembled a peace process so much as a pendulum, swinging between the Russian and Ukrainian positions, with occasional stops in the middle to express frustration over the whole affair.
 
The latest swing to the Russian side this month has been a doozy. Last week, the White House embraced a 28-point “peace plan” stuffed with the Kremlin’s demands, and Trump gave Ukraine five days to accept it. The task of delivering the ultimatum fell to Dan Driscoll, the U.S. Army secretary, who arrived in Kyiv just as the plan leaked to the media. Its provisions looked to many Ukrainians like a set of demands for their capitulation..." 

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