MIAMI, Florida - As Ukraine's delegation arrives in Miami for a new round of peace consultations, humanitarian and military analysts are issuing increasingly stark warnings about what they see as a narrowing window to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty - and the credibility of the West.
Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of the humanitarian aid organization Hope For Ukraine, told Kyiv Post on Saturday that the upcoming consultations could deliver either a historic breakthrough or a devastating rupture in the US-Ukraine relationship.
For Boyechko, the best possible outcome would be the finalization of a framework "that secures an explicit, robust, and potentially treaty-backed US security guarantee for Ukraine, immediately deterring future Russian aggression."
He emphasized that any agreement must "uphold Ukraine's full sovereignty and territorial integrity," avoiding language implying "a permanent, forced loss of land."
Achieving that, he said, would maintain Western unity and pave the way for a leaders' summit to ratify a sustainable ceasefire on acceptable security terms.
But Boyechko warned that the worst-case scenario remains alarmingly plausible. If Washington is perceived as pushing Kyiv to accept limits on its future military or a mandated non-NATO status, he said Ukraine could reject the terms - triggering "a threatened or actual withdrawal of vital American military aid," fracturing the alliance and leaving Ukraine "permanently exposed to future Russian aggression."
That concern is echoed more forcefully by retired US Army Colonel Richard Williams, a former deputy director in NATO's Defense Investment Division, who delivered a blistering assessment of the proposed US approach.
Williams told Kyiv Post that Kyiv "already lost a key 'partner' [in the USA]," and that capitulating to a Russia-leaning settlement would mean Ukraine would "lose their 'dignity' as well."
He framed the national choice in stark existential terms: whether Ukrainians "choose the prospect of living/dying as Russian slaves, or -- potentially dying as free men!"
He argued that Trump could portray himself as a "humanitarian peacemaker" atop the "corpses and slaves of the Ukrainian people," and warned that history would remember such an agreement as a profound act of "appeasement," with bystanders facing condemnation alongside it.
Williams went further, predicting that Trump would be tied to "the demise of NATO's deterrence" and potentially the alliance itself.
He also charged that by endorsing a Kremlin-favored surrender and occupation of Ukrainian territory, Trump had "destroyed forever the USA's credibility," including Washington's commitments in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine surrendered the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal.
These warnings come as Kyiv enters a volatile phase of diplomacy sparked by a peace plan circulated by President Donald Trump.
The initial draft, according to Ukrainian officials, heavily favored Russia and triggered alarm within Zelensky's government. Ukrainian and European negotiators swiftly developed a counter-proposal during meetings in Geneva, hoping to redirect the talks before Washington's position solidifies.
Rustem Umerov - newly appointed Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council after Zelensky's top aide resigned Friday - will lead the Ukrainian delegation.
Umerov is expected to navigate a tense political landscape when he meets US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami, a US official told Kyiv Post.
All of this unfolds against the backdrop of Russia's largest aerial assault in a month.
At least three people were killed in Saturday's barrage of drones and missiles across Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said - an escalation that underscores the stakes of the Miami consultations and the urgency behind Kyiv's demands for hard security guarantees.
The delegation arrives in the US with explosions still echoing at home - and with experts warning that what happens in these meetings could shape not only the next phase of the war, but the future of Western deterrence itself.