After nearly four years of chest-thumping, blank checks, and virtue-signaling photo ops from half of Europe and every cable news anchor in America, Ukraine has finally agreed to a peace deal. The same Ukraine we were all told had the moral high ground, the military momentum, and an “unbreakable” alliance with the West. Turns out, reality eventually catches up—especially when your capital city is getting shelled, and your biggest backer is running out of political capital and, let’s be honest, spare cash.
Now, this agreement isn’t inked just yet. There are still a few “minor details,” as the anonymous U.S. official put it. You know, probably just the usual trifles like territory, security guarantees, and who gets to declare “mission accomplished” on the Sunday shows. But the broad strokes are clear: the U.S., Ukraine, and yes, even Russia, sat down in Abu Dhabi (neutral turf, of course) to hammer this out. And wouldn’t you know it, it wasn’t Biden’s Secretary of State leading the charge—it was Secretary Dan Driscoll and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, with Marco Rubio stepping in to tighten up a deal that was originally slammed by GOP Rep. Don Bacon as a “surrender document.”
Let’s pause on that for a second. A Republican-led diplomatic effort, under the leadership of the Trump team, got Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table and got them to agree on a peace framework. Remember when we were told diplomacy under Trump was a non-starter? That the adults in the room had to be in charge or World War III was inevitable? Yet here we are. Peace deal. On the table. Brokered by the people who supposedly didn’t know what they were doing.
Of course, the plan’s first draft leaked to Axios caused a minor political earthquake in Europe. Why? Because it actually expected Ukraine to give up some ground. Not just physical territory, but the fantasy that Russia would slink back across the border in defeat and leave behind a box of apology letters. The horror! European leaders clutched their pearls, even though everyone in Brussels has known for years that Ukraine wasn’t going to win this war outright without dragging NATO into a hot war with a nuclear-armed Russia. But hey, appearances matter more than outcomes, right?
Still, the updated plan—thankfully adjusted with input from Rubio and others—has calmed some of the outrage. It’s not perfect, but as Rep. Bacon pointed out, it’s a “better plan.” And more importantly, it’s a plan Ukraine is willing to live with. Let’s not forget, just hours before the agreement was announced, Russia launched another brutal missile barrage on Kyiv, killing six and injuring thirteen. That’s what finally forced the issue. It wasn’t speeches at the U.N. or warzone photo ops with actors-turned-presidents. It was hard reality and the fact that the Biden administration, for all its performative support, couldn’t keep the money faucet flowing forever.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council secretary, Rustem Umerov, made a point to thank the Trump team for their efforts and said he looked forward to Zelenskyy visiting the U.S. soon to finalize the deal. You can almost hear the nervous foot-tapping from Biden’s State Department, which suddenly finds itself watching from the sidelines of a game it thought it was coaching.
So here we are. The war that the media wanted to last forever—because outrage clicks and flag-waving pay the bills—is winding down thanks to a Republican-led effort that prioritized results over optics. There’ll be spin, of course. The same people who called Trump a Putin puppet will now claim he “gave away” Ukraine. But what they won’t admit is this: the only thing worse than a messy peace is a never-ending war with no plan. And for all the noise, at least someone finally came up with one.
