By Phil Huber, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
Volodymyr Zelenskyy deserves credit for practicing the negotiating principles Donald Trump has spent years promoting: protect your downside, preserve your options and use your leverage. When those principles belong to a country fighting for survival, they should command respect—not accusations that its president cannot make a deal.
Trump says Ukraine has had repeated opportunities to end the war. But an opportunity to sign is not necessarily an opportunity for a secure peace. The test is what Russia must concede, who verifies compliance and what happens if Moscow attacks again.
Start with responsibility. Russia seized Crimea and supported armed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014, nearly three years before Trump first became president. Putin expanded that war into a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. Zelenskyy did not start it. Neither did Trump. Russia did.
Ukraine has already learned the cost of accepting assurances without adequate protection. Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Russia, the United States and Britain pledged to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and existing borders and refrain from threatening or using force against it. The assurances accompanied Ukraine’s agreement to relinquish the Soviet nuclear arsenal on its territory and transfer the warheads to Russia for dismantlement.
Russia plainly violated those commitments. Washington did not promise automatic military intervention, so its record cannot honestly be equated with Russia’s invasion. But the distinction between assurances and guarantees offers Ukrainians little comfort when their homes are destroyed. Their experience makes demands for enforceable protection understandable—not unreasonable.
The price Ukrainians have paid is not an abstraction on a negotiating chart. In September 2026, a United Nations commission statement cited more than 17,000 civilians killed and almost 54,000 injured since the full-scale invasion. Those are civilian figures, not a count of military losses.
The U.N. Human Rights Commission estimated in February that 3.7 million people remained displaced within Ukraine and 10.8 million needed humanitarian assistance. Behind those totals are families separated, homes abandoned and children growing up around air-raid warnings.
The suffering continues. On October 9, U.N. officials told the Security Council that Russian strikes had killed more than 100 civilians and injured at least 429 that week alone. Attacks on critical infrastructure threatened to leave millions without electricity, heating and water as winter approached.
These are the people who will live with the fine print. Their desire for peace should not be mistaken for a willingness to accept any terms labeled “peace.”
Nor does the record support the claim that Ukraine simply refuses to negotiate. On March 11, 2025, Ukraine accepted Washington’s proposal for an immediate, renewable 30-day ceasefire, provided Russia accepted and implemented it too. Putin did not accept that full ceasefire; he agreed instead to a narrower pause on energy-infrastructure attacks.
Ukraine and its European partners subsequently offered a framework calling for a ceasefire, security guarantees and territorial negotiations. That was a counterproposal—not an abandonment of diplomacy.
At the June 2025 Istanbul talks, Russia demanded recognition of its annexations and Ukrainian withdrawal from additional territory, including areas Russian forces did not control. Moscow also sought neutrality and limits on Ukraine’s military. One proposed ceasefire route required an end to foreign military assistance and intelligence support.
Apply Trump’s advice: protect the downside. What is Ukraine’s downside if it gives up territory, weakens its defenses and receives assurances from the government that invaded it? Demanding safeguards against another attack is not stubbornness. It is responsible bargaining.
Preserve your options. Maintaining European partnerships and the ability to defend the country is not evidence that Zelenskyy opposes peace. It is how he avoids negotiating with nothing left to exchange.
Use your leverage. Ukraine’s resistance has prevented Russia from imposing all its demands by force. That leverage should purchase reciprocal commitments, not disappear merely because another government wants a quick announcement.
None of this makes Zelenskyy infallible. Ukraine may have to accept painful compromises. But compromise is not synonymous with surrender, and security guarantees are not decorative language for a signing ceremony.
Give Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people credit for understanding what is at stake. They are not bargaining for a better headline. They are bargaining for their country’s survival.
This November, vote for members of Congress with the backbone to support Ukraine’s defense and insist that Russia—not just Ukraine—make concessions. A candidate who promises peace should explain how that peace will protect the people expected to live under it.
Ukraine should not have to surrender its future because American leaders lack the courage to defend their commitments.
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Phil Huber is a retired Army Reserve colonel and former federal civil servant who writes about civic education, public accountability and national security. He lives in Fredericksburg.
