Author’s Note
As a historian and outside observer, I wrote this essay to make sense of the United States’ evolving role in the Ukraine war, drawing especially on Adam Entous’s powerful March 2025 investigation in The New York Times. While this piece contains no direct quotations, it follows the factual backbone of that reporting and weaves it into a broader interpretive narrative, integrating additional sources and context. The investigative credit, however, is entirely Entous’s.

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The war in Ukraine has unfolded in broad daylight, yet much of America’s role has been hidden in shadows – until now. In March 2025 The New York Times published an in-depth investigation by Adam Entous detailing a “secret history” of U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war. Drawing on 300 interviews with officials across governments, this reporting reveals that long before Russia’s 2022 invasion, the United States and Ukraine forged a clandestine partnership of intelligence, military planning, and logistics. This article traces that partnership from its genesis after Crimea’s 2014 annexation, through the Trump and Biden years, and into Trump’s second term. We also critically address two Kremlin narratives – that NATO provoked the war and that Ukraine is run by Nazis – and assess what America’s strategy in Ukraine signals to other powers, especially China.

Throughout, our analysis is evidence-based and nonpartisan. It draws primarily on the New York Times investigation by Adam Entous, alongside other authoritative sources. By anchoring each section in documented evidence, we ensure the account remains factual. The narrative shows how hidden aid and coordination with Ukraine undergirded Kyiv’s resistance, even as official U.S. policy appeared more restrained. In the end, we consider how this story speaks to the shaping of a new international order: a test of American resolve that has lessons for Taiwan and future conflicts.

2014–2016: Obama’s Cautious Engagement after Crimea

Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014 – the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the subsequent Donbas conflict – was the opening act in the chain of events leading to the 2022 invasion. President Barack Obama reacted firmly at first by condemning Russia’s seizure of Crimea and imposing sanctions. However, Obama’s team was wary of provoking a wider confrontation with Russia. As Entous reports, “Obama had…authorized only strictly limited intelligence sharing and rejected calls for defensive weapons”. Ukraine’s president at the time, Petro Poroshenko, complained bitterly, “Blankets and night-vision goggles are important, but one cannot win a war with blankets,” reflecting Kyiv’s frustration. In practice, U.S. aid during this period was modest. The Obama administration did provide non-lethal aid and training, but initially held back on supplying lethal arms. (It would not be until December 2017 – at the very end of Obama’s tenure – that the U.S. quietly approved sending Javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine.)

Behind the scenes, however, cooperation was growing. According to an ABC News report, almost immediately after the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine’s new intelligence chiefs reached out to Western partners. When Viktor Yanukovych fell from power in February 2014, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) was in disarray – its offices were abandoned and compromised by Russian agents. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, who became head of the SBU, urgently called the U.S. and British embassies in Kyiv asking for help, and they agreed to set up a combat-training program for SBU officers. Likewise, in 2015 General Valeriy Kondratyuk of Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) carried reams of secret Russian military documents to Washington, persuading the CIA to rebuild Ukraine’s intelligence capabilities.

By 2016, the United States was quietly funding and training Ukrainian spy agencies. The CIA poured millions into rebuilding HUR, built about a dozen secret forward-operating bases along the Russian border, and even began joint international operations with Ukrainian agents. A former U.S. official later told ABC News that Ukraine had become “one of [the CIA’s] most important partners, up in the realm of the Brits”. The result was an “extraordinary window” into Russian plans. In short, Obama-era policy to Ukraine was publicly limited (sanctions and diplomatic support) but secretly enabled Ukraine’s intelligence services. These early steps laid groundwork for the deeper military collaboration that would emerge after 2022.

2017–2020: The Trump Years – Pragmatism and New Arms

The presidency of Donald Trump marked a complex chapter in U.S.-Ukraine ties. On one hand, President Trump famously questioned why the U.S. should spend on a distant war and at times sought political favors from Ukraine. But on the other hand, his administration took significant actions. In late 2017, Trump approved a landmark shift: after years of hesitation, the U.S. would begin supplying lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine. On December 22, 2017, the State Department announced the sale of Javelin anti-tank missiles, a move described by analysts as “the shift in U.S. policy under the Trump administration”, enabling the first direct shipment of lethal arms to Ukraine. This decision capped a long debate (since 2015) over arming Kyiv against Russian tanks. A few days earlier, the U.S. had quietly authorized large exports of sniper rifles, ammunition, and other gear.

Thus in practice the Trump years saw more material support than is often remembered. President Trump “relaxed [the intelligence] strictures” further than Obama had, and “supplied the Ukrainians with their first antitank Javelins”. At the same time, Trump’s rhetoric and approach were erratic. He at times delayed or conditioned aid (famously seeking investigations from Ukraine in exchange for a security meeting, leading to his first impeachment). He also threatened to withdraw from NATO, unnerving allies and casting doubt on U.S. commitments. But the facts of weapons transfers tell a more pragmatic story: under Trump, U.S. aid continued flowing and even increased. (By early 2018, U.S. military aid was bipartisan law, and Trump signed large Ukraine aid packages into law.)

One byproduct of the Trump era was that, unbeknownst to the public, U.S. and Ukrainian military officers deepened their own contacts. For example, American Army Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps, had proposed a formal partnership arrangement in Wiesbaden, Germany, early in 2022. That proposal drew on groundwork already laid in 2018–20 by U.S. and allied planners who had begun coordinating with Ukrainian generals in forums like the Joint Multinational Training Group in Europe. While Trump’s public stance could be unpredictable, the military-to-military channels quietly continued.

2021–2024: Biden’s Open War and the Secret Partnership

When Joe Biden took office in January 2021, his administration carried forward many bipartisan policies on Ukraine. Early on, the Biden team provided additional security assistance and kept strong sanctions on Russia, but still hesitated to send troops. In fact, Entous notes that on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion, “the Biden administration had closed the Kyiv embassy and pulled all military personnel from the country,” leaving only a small CIA team to observe. According to one U.S. official quoted in the Times, when told “the Russians are coming,” the U.S. response was effectively “see ya”. This sudden absence of visible American presence contributed to Ukrainian leaders’ anxiety as war loomed.

After Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022, Ukrainian officials were initially skeptical of the new Americans who arrived to help. Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s ground forces commander, bluntly told U.S. generals at their first meeting: “We’re fighting the Russians. You’re not. Why should we listen to you?”. That wariness was mutual: the U.S. officers found that Ukraine’s fractured high command and Zelensky’s political position complicated coordination. Still, necessity forced collaboration. Gen. Donahue and a small team began relaying tactical information by phone: they tracked Russian troop movements and passed tips directly to Syrsky’s headquarters. This ad-hoc arrangement, humble as it was, soon became institutionalized. In one anecdote, the U.S. Pentagon even set up an informal telephone tree (involving an American general’s aide, a Ukrainian-born businessman in Los Angeles, and Ukraine’s defense minister) just to get messages through to Ukraine’s frustrated top general.

By spring 2022, those fraught early days gave way to the formal genesis of the U.S.–Ukraine partnership. Two months into the invasion, two Ukrainian generals secretly flew (under diplomatic cover and British commando escort) to Wiesbaden, Germany. There they met Lt. Gen. Donahue, who “proposed a partnership” between U.S. Army Europe and Ukraine’s General Staff. This agreement was ushered past public scrutiny; it became “one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war”. As Entous writes, from that point on “America [was] woven into the war far more intimately and broadly than previously understood”.

The Hidden Command Center in Wiesbaden

Under the partnership, a mission command center was set up at Clay Kaserne, Wiesbaden. There, American and Ukrainian officers planned counteroffensives side by side. U.S. generals, intelligence analysts, and CIA officers worked at computer stations next to Ukraine’s generals. According to the Times, at critical moments “the partnership was the backbone of Ukrainian military operations”. Officers in Wiesbaden coordinated the delivery of weapons, determined how to use them, and passed targeting data to Ukrainian troops on the front lines. The Allies dubbed the effort Task Force Dragon, led by Donahue and later Lt. Gen. Christopher Cavoli. By fall 2023, this joint command center had directed or facilitated attacks that Ukraine estimates inflicted roughly 435,000 casualties on Russian forces (and U.S. officials put the figure as high as 700,000).

One telling example was the campaign against the Russian 58th Combined Arms Army, one of Putin’s elite units. In mid-2022, American intelligence pinpointed the 58th’s headquarters at Kherson. Ukrainian forces unleashed a barrage of rockets on the command post, killing several Russian generals and staff officers. Each time surviving 58th units tried to regroup or relocate, U.S. intelligence tracked them again and Ukrainians struck anew. Similarly, the U.S. helped plan a daring assault on the occupied Crimean port of Sevastopol. Using CIA-supported maritime drones at the height of Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensive, Kyiv struck Russian warships docked there, prompting Russia to pull its Black Sea fleet back for safety. These early victories – enabled by the hidden partnership – kept Russian forces off balance.

Behind these battlefield successes was a vast American intelligence effort. The CIA, National Reconnaissance Office, and other agencies massively increased satellite and signal coverage of Russian movements, passing real-time data to Ukraine. In Entous’s words, “American and Ukrainian officers planned [Ukraine’s] counteroffensives side by side”, and “a vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field”. A senior NATO intelligence chief said he was shocked at how embedded his countrymen had become in the war: “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said. In effect, Western intelligence services joined Ukraine’s artillery spotters and drones in determining where strikes would fall.

This partnership quickly produced battlefield dividends. CIA-trained Ukrainian special forces ambushed and destroyed Russian columns, and Ukrainian drone units penetrated deeply into Russian-held territory with U.S. guidance. As one former U.S. official later noted, the Ukrainian intelligence special operators “were able to hit the Russians hard and hit them in ways that they didn’t expect… That was the result of years of investment from the agency”. That “years of investment” phrase refers to the CIA’s decade-long buildup of Ukraine’s spy agencies (see above), but its payoff was unmistakable after 2022. By one account, American intelligence sharing and battlefield advice “became crucial for Ukraine” once full-scale invasion began.

Friction and Breakdowns

However, the partnership was not without friction. Ukrainian commanders sometimes bristled at what they saw as American “micromanaging” or caution. The Times reports that Americans were often focused on achievable goals, while Ukrainians constantly sought the “bright, shining prize” of a decisive counteroffensive. For example, in summer 2023 the joint plan at Wiesbaden had called for a careful buildup before a counterattack. But Ukraine’s military chief General Valeriy Zaluzhny argued internally with civilian leaders, and President Zelensky overrode U.S. advice to attack the heavily defended city of Bakhmut. The result was a slugfest of enormous bloodshed and eventually failure. As Entous notes, that pivotal 2023 counteroffensive “fell victim to the fractious internal politics of Ukraine” – and “a finally futile campaign to recapture… Bakhmut” ended in “stillborn failure”. The Americans viewed some of Ukraine’s tactics as unnecessarily costly, while Ukrainians complained the U.S. held back advanced weapons (e.g. longer-range missiles) until too late.

Another source of tension was Washington’s “red lines” against direct conflict with Russia. American commanders in Wiesbaden were hyper-aware of President Putin’s threats of nuclear escalation. Early in the war, U.S. policy forbade direct Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil or Crimea without explicit approval. But as the war dragged on, the Biden team gradually pushed those limits. By mid-2022, U.S. military advisors were allowed to move closer to the front with Ukrainians and even enter Kyiv’s headquarters. In spring 2023, the Americans helped plan Ukrainian missile strikes against targets in Russian-annexed Crimea. Finally, with the Kremlin attacking Kyiv in summer 2023, the Pentagon granted Ukraine permission to strike deep into Russia itself, so long as it was precise. In Entous’s account: “Time and again, the Biden administration authorized clandestine operations it had previously prohibited… [and] military and C.I.A. officers in Wiesbaden helped plan and support a campaign of Ukrainian strikes in Russian-annexed Crimea. Finally… the military and then the C.I.A. received the green light to enable pinpoint strikes deep inside Russia itself.”.

By late 2023, the partnership had driven Russia’s forces back in the northeast and established a tenuous balance along a new front line. Ukraine’s defense held, against the odds, in no small part due to U.S. support – though private U.S. estimates of Russian casualties (circa 700,000) far exceed Ukrainian claims (about 435,000). In all, more than 200 Western advisors and operators – mostly covertly – worked alongside Ukrainian units in the field by late 2023. But operational wins were increasingly mixed: after early successes, Ukraine’s spring 2023 counteroffensive faltered, showing that foreign equipment and intel alone could not guarantee victory without sound strategy.

Trump’s Return: Rolling Back the Partnership

The Times investigation notes that as of early 2025, President Trump (now in his second term) had already begun scaling back elements of this secret partnership. The article observes: “Today [the liberal international] order… teeters on a knife edge, as President Trump seeks rapprochement with Mr. Putin and vows to bring the war to a close. Mr. Trump has already begun to wind down elements of the partnership sealed in Wiesbaden….”. Indeed, by April 2025 a key U.S. logistics hub for Ukraine aid was being transferred to European allies. In Jasionka, Poland – a base where up to 95% of U.S. weapons for Ukraine have flowed since 2022 – American troops and equipment started to withdraw, handing responsibilities to NATO partners. U.S. Central Command publicly described this as a “right-sizing” after three years, but observers noted the context: many Europeans worried Trump’s new administration might abandon its support for Ukraine in favor of conciliation with Russia. The Pentagon insists aid remains strong in quantity, but cutting the American presence in Poland has certainly changed the dynamic. Trump has also made clear in public statements that he would seek negotiations with Putin on terms criticized by Ukraine. For example, in early 2025 he mentioned letting Russia retain some captured Ukrainian territory and pressuring Kyiv to agree to ceasefires without explicit U.S. security guarantees. (Those remarks, which echo earlier Entous reporting, have alarmed Ukrainian officials.)

Despite these developments, U.S. aid still plays a central role in Ukraine’s defense, even if the secret command structure of 2022–23 is now partly dismantled. The Biden administration publicly tallied in 2024 that the United States had provided $66.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine – including thousands of missiles, howitzers, tanks, drones, and even Patriot batteries. Most of that is openly recorded. But beyond just counting hardware, American policy in Ukraine has signaled a broader commitment to allies and deterrence. As one Washington expert put it: helping Ukraine defend itself is “an investment in a global order where freedom, cooperation, and human dignity prevail” (echoing an old ideal of the post–Cold War era). The secret partnership of 2022–23, revealed now, shows how far the U.S. went – and the risks it was willing to take – to uphold that order.

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Beyond the Timeline: Disinformation and Strategic Meaning

While the secret partnership between Washington and Kyiv has evolved across administrations, from hesitant beginnings to deep military integration and now partial rollback, its significance cannot be fully understood without addressing the narratives that surround it. Misinformation — especially Russian propaganda aimed at Western audiences — has clouded public debate and distorted perceptions of the war’s origins and stakes. To assess the broader meaning of U.S. involvement, we must first separate historical fact from persistent falsehood.

Debunking Disinformation: NATO Didn’t Invade, Ukraine Isn’t Nazi

In discussing Ukraine, two false narratives have been relentlessly pushed by the Kremlin and its sympathizers: that NATO’s expansion provoked Russia’s war, and that Ukraine is controlled by neo-Nazis. Focusing on facts refutes both.

• NATO Did Not “Invade” Ukraine or Make Secret Promises. Critics claim Russia attacked because NATO kept expanding “one inch to the east.” In reality, no Western leader ever made a binding pledge to stop NATO enlargement. Declassified records show that U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and West German officials floated such an idea to Soviet leaders in 1990, but the proposal was quickly dropped and never became treaty law. NATO’s founding treaty explicitly welcomes any European nation to join, and successive rounds of Eastern enlargement (from 1999 on) happened at the request of those nations themselves – nations long dominated by Moscow and eager for security guarantees. In fact, as one EU fact-check notes, “sovereign nations in Eastern Europe wanted to join NATO – not because NATO sought to encircle Russia, but because [they]…were determined never to return to subjugation”. Moreover, NATO is a defensive alliance and has never invaded or attacked Russia. It has repeatedly affirmed, on the contrary, that it poses no threat to Russia. Scholarly analyses conclude that NATO enlargement is an ex post facto explanation offered by Moscow, but historically the invasion of Ukraine was sparked by Putin’s own aggressive designs, not by NATO’s existence. In short: blaming NATO expansion for Russia’s war is a distortion without documentary basis.
• Ukraine Is Not a Nazi State. Another persistent claim is that Ukraine’s government is “run by Nazis.” This is flatly false. President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish, with grandparents who died fighting the Nazis in World War II, and he was overwhelmingly elected in 2019 with 73% of the vote. U.S. President Biden called Russian claims of a “denazification” mission a lie and “obscene,” noting that they disrespect Holocaust victims. Historians worldwide have condemned the narrative: over 300 Holocaust experts signed a statement declaring that conflating Ukraine’s democratic government with Nazi ideology is “factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive”. It is true that Ukraine, like many countries, has a small fringe of far-right radicals. Yet decades of election data show these groups have only fringe influence. One analyst notes that Ukrainian far-right parties rarely exceeded 3% of the vote and have never held state power. As a Johns Hopkins expert summarized, neo-Nazi and xenophobic groups in Ukraine are “vocal and can be prone to violence but… numerically small, marginal and their political influence at the state level is non-existent”. By contrast, ethnic Russian nationalist extremists are far more prominent in Russia itself. In short, Ukraine’s elected leadership is mainstream and democratic, and portraying the entire country as fascist is a deceptive smear.

These facts underline that neither NATO nor Ukraine provoked Russia’s aggression. The pretext narratives serve Moscow’s propaganda goals, not any reality on the ground. Objective evidence shows Ukraine sought closer ties to Europe by the will of its people, and the NATO alliance has remained staunchly defensive. Likewise, while history and heroes from World War II matter to all sides, today’s Ukraine is a pluralistic democracy with mainstream leaders – not an ideological offshoot of the Nazis.

Understanding the false narratives used to justify Russia’s aggression is essential — but so is recognizing why the U.S. response matters beyond Ukraine. In an era of multipolar tension, where authoritarian regimes test the limits of democratic resolve, how Washington chooses to act sends ripples far beyond Europe. The war in Ukraine has become more than a regional conflict; it is now a signal to the world. And nowhere is that signal watched more carefully than in Beijing.

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Global Signals: What Ukraine Means for China and the World

The United States’ strategy in Ukraine resonates beyond Europe. The way Washington and its allies have acted (or hesitated) sends powerful signals in places like Asia. Many observers see the Ukraine war as a warning and test for Taiwan. An Atlantic Council analysis concludes bluntly: “The defense of Taiwan tomorrow is intrinsically linked to the defense of Ukraine today.” In other words, if a nuclear-armed Russia can roll back borders with little immediate consequence, China may be emboldened. That analysis argues that U.S. credibility in Asia depends on not allowing Putin’s aggression to succeed. Similarly, in Tokyo and Taipei the war has prompted efforts to learn lessons: stronger defenses, closer U.S. alliances, and stockpiling of Western weapons.

More broadly, Ukraine has become a proving ground of democracy versus autocracy. The Biden administration has publicly framed support for Kyiv as defending the post–1945 international order – rules about sovereignty, borders, and self-determination that emerged after World War II. Every shipment of weapons, every intelligence leak to Ukraine, has signaled that the U.S. still stands by smaller nations against great-power coercion. Even President Trump’s flap about “freeloading” allies, mentioned in Entous’s report, elicited GOP and Democratic criticism. Many U.S. policymakers see Ukraine as part of a larger narrative: if Washington lets Moscow redraw the map by force, authoritarian states worldwide (not just Beijing) learn that intimidation works.

At the same time, the secretiveness of U.S. involvement – revealed by the Entous piece – shows a shift from Cold War days. No open major-power army is officially “fighting Russia,” but tens of thousands of Americans (uniformed and civilian) have quietly enabled Ukraine’s resistance. This has required delicate calibration: balancing the risk of direct clash with Russia against the imperative of stopping Russian advances. It has also meant signaling to Beijing that the U.S. can fight an extended proxy war far from home, which may enhance deterrence. Alternatively, some critics in the U.S. worry that a low-profile approach will be seen as hesitance. What’s clear is that the next moves in Ukraine will be watched closely in Asia. If Washington holds firm, it strengthens the credibility of U.S. security commitments globally; if not, it risks spurring other powers to test boundaries.

Conclusion: Shaping the International Order

The story of American involvement in Ukraine is still unfolding, but one lesson is already sharp: conflicts in our interconnected era cannot be contained to a single region. In Ukraine, Washington has had to juggle competing priorities – deterrence and diplomacy toward Russia, provision of arms to an embattled ally, and public opinion at home – while keeping the war from expanding. According to the New York Times investigation, U.S. and allied forces sometimes came “close to [Putin’s] red line” of direct engagement, testing the limits of how far American support could go without triggering a larger war. That gamble has generally paid off: Ukraine is still fighting, and Europe’s security borders have (for now) held.

Looking forward, Ukraine’s fate will help shape the post-2025 world. If Ukraine eventually negotiates a durable peace – one that preserves its independence and the principles of the UN Charter – it will be a testament to international resolve in the face of aggression. The hidden partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine, now out in the open, may be seen as a complex yet crucial part of that outcome. As one forward-looking commentator noted, supporting Ukraine is “an investment in a global order where freedom, cooperation, and human dignity prevail”. We echo that sentiment with humility: no arrangement or alliance is without flaws, but evidence suggests that what happens in Ukraine in the months and years ahead will reverberate around the world.

In retrospect, the Ukraine story may join history’s long narrative of proxy struggles – the Times even calls it a “rematch” of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria and other conflicts. Yet history is not predetermined. The details revealed – America’s secret mission control, the CIA’s investment in Ukraine’s spies, the synchronized offensives – underscore a basic reality: the future balance of power is under negotiation on the plains of Ukraine. Whatever clichés one might invoke about “the march of history,” the past two decades have shown that alliances, logistics, and perseverance matter enormously. Today, Ukrainians are fighting not just for their own land, but for a principle that small countries have a right to choose their path. The international order of tomorrow will reflect whether that effort succeeds.

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Sources: This analysis is built on Adam Entous’s “The Secret History of America’s Involvement in the Ukraine War,” New York Times, March 29, 2025, and related reporting. Additional sources include ABC News (on CIA-Ukrainian intelligence cooperation), the Atlantic Council (on U.S. lethal aid to Ukraine), NATO and EU fact-checking websites (debunking disinformation), and contemporary press reports.