How a capitulation plan shakes Ukraine and puts hundreds of thousands in the United States at risk

In Bucha, where mass graves, bullet holes, and the smell of burned wood still remind people of what Russian soldiers left behind in the spring of 2022, residents are grappling with a new burden. A capitulation plan, we cannot call it a peace plan, that provides for a blanket amnesty for all war crimes strikes survivors harder than many political debates of recent years. Those who lost relatives, identified bodies, or carried torture marks out of basements see in it no step toward peace but a slap in the face. “It is a green light,” says Priest Andrij Halawin in his still damaged church. “It means you can keep bombing, keep shooting. Nothing will happen to you.”

The capitulation plan demands that Ukraine give up territory, reduce its army, and forgo joining NATO. For people like Vira Katanenko, whose son was killed in the Donbas, this sounds like a demand that only someone makes if the suffering of others does not matter. “Let them come here and see it for themselves,” she says at her son’s grave. “Then we can talk.”

The force of these demands hits a country that has been fighting an invasion for almost four years, but it also hits those Ukrainians who have long lived abroad. In the United States nearly 200,000 refugees are falling into a situation that worsens every day. A new problem is landing more and more on our already overcrowded desks, and it threatens to become a humanitarian catastrophe. Many came to the country through humanitarian programs, work, pay taxes, send their children to school - and must now realize that their stay is suddenly becoming unstable. Work permits expire, extensions are delayed or denied. Legal counseling centers report people who, through no fault of their own, are slipping into a dangerous limbo.

In Chicago, Seattle, and Philadelphia people sit in front of files that show how fragile their previous protection has become. Some received letters demanding new documentation that they can hardly obtain. Many have already lost their work permits or they were not renewed. Others were confronted with contradictory decisions. Employers do not know whether they will soon lose their Ukrainian employees. Lawyers are already warning that a situation is developing here that could get completely out of control within a few months. In the coming days we will try to integrate this additional task into our already overloaded daily work. Please understand if this leads to delays in reporting.

At the same time in Ukraine relatives are saying goodbye to a fallen machine gunner. People stand in the rain as the coffin is lowered, speaking about how real the danger of a capitulation plan has become for their country. “How can you ask this of your own history?” asks a former reservist. “The war will not end soon. We will have to keep dying for a long time.”

Both worlds - Ukraine at the front and Ukrainians in the United States - are connected. One group is looking at a plan that calls their existence into question. The other sees how their lives in a supposedly safe country are slipping due to political decisions. The capitulation plan may look like a way out on paper. For the people who had to dig graves, for those who are trying to build a new life abroad, and for everyone who stands each day between fear and hope, it is the opposite: a danger that puts everything at risk.