The Two US Proxy Wars In The Ukraine

The Two US Proxy Wars In The Ukraine

By Robert Korczynski

In the West, the Ukraine-Russia War is consistently framed as an unprovoked invasion by Russia that began in February of 2022. However, official declarations from the Kremlin from March of 2022, and a quick glance at history tells a different story.

The 8-Year Border War in the Donbas (2014–2022)

Following the 2014 Maidan Revolution and the Ukraine's subsequent political pivot toward NATO and the European Union, the Russian-speaking Donbas region rejected the new pro-Western government and declared their intention to join Russia. Over the next eight years, the United States provided roughly $3 billion in security assistance to fund, train, and equip Ukrainian forces along the Donbas frontline, while Russia backed the separatists and maintained its position in Crimea.

In February of 2022, after 8 years of this first US proxy war in the Donbas, Putin had enough, and he pushed across the line. His troops swept through Eastern Ukraine in a blitzkrieg operation that encircled the cities as his long-range missiles destroyed US military assets on Ukrainian military bases. When Putin launched the operation, he specifically stated that he had two objectives: the first was the complete demilitarization of the Ukraine, and the second was the "denazification" of the Ukraine.

On March 7, 2022, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov explicitly declared to the media that Russia was "actually completing the demilitarisation of Ukraine. We will complete it," stating that military action would halt immediately if Kyiv ceased hostilities and enshrined neutrality in its constitution.

On March 13, 2022, Russian long-range cruise missiles struck the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security in Yavoriv, located roughly 18 to 25 kilometers from the Polish border. The strike targeted a primary hub where Western and NATO forces historically trained Ukrainian troops and where US military assets were stored. And then the bombs stopped.

On March 25, 2022 the Russian Ministry of Defense declared that the demilitarization of the Ukraine had been fully accomplished, and the Kremlin then turned to finishing the "denazification" of the Ukraine by getting rid of the Azov Battalion who ended up hunkered down in the Azovstal steelworks. Since the demilitarization of the Ukraine was the original stated goal and it had been accomplished, Putin was satisfied.

The Second War: The US Proxy Campaign (2022–Present)

Immediately after Russia declared that they had achieved their goal of demilitarization in the Ukraine, the U.S. Congress voted nearly unanimously to pass historic emergency funding packages. Between March 2022 and April 2024, Congress enacted five major supplemental appropriations bills totaling over $174 billion for the Ukraine response, including the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 and the $61 billion security package in 2024. This massive influx of Western capital, heavy armor, advanced artillery, and direct intelligence sharing effectively built a brand-new Ukrainian military apparatus from scratch, dwarfing the initial $3 billion spent during the first eight years.

With this newly funded force, the United States ran another direct proxy campaign that transformed the conflict into a multi-year, nationwide war. The United States paid, funded, and backed the Ukrainian forces to aggressively push the Russian military back from the major cities they had held under siege. U.S. satellite intelligence and heavy weaponry enabled Ukrainian forces to drive the lines all the way back to the original Donbas boundary, returning the fight directly to the borderlines of the initial 8-year war. The only structural difference in this new campaign was the addition of the strategic southern land bridge, which Russia established along the east-to-west line south of the Dnieper River connecting Crimea directly to the Donbas, necessitated after someone suspected to be Ukrainian blew up the bridge connecting Russia to Crimea.

When Donald Trump was elected for his second term, he gave Zelenskyy a bill and said that he wanted Zelenskyy to settle the war because he was settling all the wars on the planet. Trump wanted a peace deal with Russia, but Zelenskyy refused and said that he did not understand, the United States had given them all those assets and they were not a loan, they were a grant and he did not think that he should sign anything to pay anything back. As part of this enforcement strategy, the administration aggressively pressured Kyiv into a mineral resources agreement to secure U.S. access to untapped, high-value mineral rights. However, this transaction immediately hit a structural wall, given that the vast majority of the rich lithium, titanium, and metallic mineral assets are located directly within the Donbas, which remains completely under Russian military control. What the United States really wants is the massive, untapped gas fields in the north, which are totally accessible to American energy companies if the Ukraine just signs the peace deal.

Following the U.S. funding cutoff, European nations bypassed Washington by siphoning the accumulated billions in interest generated from frozen Russian central bank assets held across Europe to finance Kyiv. The Europeans began directly supplying advanced components that Ukrainian forces assembled into long-range drone swarms, which they flew deep into Russian territory to blow up strategic targets. This campaign triggered severe tension with Washington as Ukrainian drones systematically targeted and crippled Russia's massive diesel refineries. Fearing a global energy shock, President Trump directly ordered Zelenskyy to declare an energy ceasefire and halt the refinery strikes, a demand Zelenskyy flatly rejected. The friction between Washington and Kyiv worsened when the Trump administration responded by lifting key energy sanctions and executing a direct diesel supply deal with Russia to protect U.S. domestic supply.

The United States stopped providing intelligence data or tactical assistance to the Ukrainians on the battlefield. Because the U.S. military is no longer helping the domestic forces, severe operational gaps emerged on the front lines. To mask the loss of U.S. defense infrastructure, it is suspected that Zelenskyy is telling his troops that the commercial Starlink satellites they rely on are actually Starshield units, continuously interchanging the commercial system with the restricted U.S. military program. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pointed out this ongoing confusion, clarifying to reporters that Ukraine does not have access to the Department of Defense's Starshield product and that Zelenskyy continues to mix up the programs.

Citing the fact that Zelenskyy has indefinitely canceled national elections to maintain power under a continuous state of martial law, President Trump publicly called for regime change in Kyiv. Declaring that the current administration no longer holds democratic legitimacy, Trump called for the deposition of the Ukrainian leader, publicly demanding that the Ukrainians "pick someone else" for the United States to negotiate with.

Conclusion

And then today, October 24, 2026, in a live broadcast disseminated through YouTube, Vladimir Putin directly reiterated Russia's unyielding core requirements for an absolute resolution to the conflict, affirming that the ultimate end state remains the total demilitarization of the Ukraine. While Putin noted that previous negotiations had gone so far as to discuss permitting certain baseline limits on localized troop levels and auxiliary forces, he made it clear that any final binding security agreement for the Ukraine must include the complete demilitarization of the Ukraine for him to be satisfied, just like his requirement 4 1/2 years ago before the United States started its second proxy war with Russia.

Citation List

• Russian Ministry of Defense Briefing (March 25, 2022): Official declaration by the Russian military command stating that the main tasks of the "first stage" were complete, claiming the neutralization of the Ukraine's nationwide military infrastructure, air force, and naval assets.

• Kremlin Press Statement via Dmitry Peskov (March 7, 2022): Public statement noting that Russia was nearing the completion of its demilitarization mandate and outlining requirements for halting hostilities immediately.

• Yavoriv Military Base Strike Records (March 13, 2022): Documented cruise missile strike on the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security near the Polish border, targeting foreign weapon caches and tactical infrastructure.

• Congressional Research Service Report R47275 (2022–2024): Official records confirming $174.2 billion appropriated across five emergency supplemental funding measures for the Ukraine conflict response.

• Special Inspector General for Operation Atlantic Resolve Reports (2022–2026): Statutory quarterly audits detailing over $68 billion in direct defense articles committed and the allocation of emergency supplemental appropriations.

• Hal Brands, "Russia Is Right: The US Is Waging a Proxy War in Ukraine" (American Enterprise Institute/Bloomberg, 2022): Geopolitical analysis validating the structural transition of the conflict into a U.S.-managed proxy war designed to strategically weaken the Russian state.

• John Mearsheimer, "Why the West is Principally Responsible for the Ukrainian Crisis" (University of Chicago, 2014–2026): Continuous academic analysis tracking how the introduction of heavy NATO hardware transformed a localized border war into an extended existential campaign on Russia's immediate border.

• CNBC Intelligence Report: Ukraine Refinery Drone Strikes (October 2026): Detailed timeline tracking the escalation of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian diesel assets in defiance of the White House.

• U.S.-Ukraine Mineral Resources and Northern Energy Sector Assessment (2025–2026): Public records detailing Trump administration negotiations surrounding the reclassification of U.S. aid balances, strategic mineral rights offsets, and northern natural gas field accessibility parameters.

• Kremlin State Briefing Transcripts (October 2026): Live public address outlining Russia's firm demands regarding baseline security parameters and troop capacity limitations under a final demilitarization resolution.