Europe Will Stand Behind Zelensky, Not Trump (w/ Mark Hertling)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes – “Europe Will Stand Behind Zelensky, Not Trump”
Date: November 21, 2025
Host: Bill Kristol
Guest: Mark Hertling (Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General, Bulwark Military Analyst)

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on U.S. and European reactions to a reportedly imposed “peace plan” for Ukraine, co-developed by U.S. and Russian officials, and its troubling implications for Ukraine’s sovereignty, European security, and American credibility. Bill Kristol interviews General Mark Hertling, drawing on Hertling’s military experience and deep understanding of Ukrainian military reforms and European geopolitics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Transformation of the Ukrainian Military (01:07–04:59)

• Hertling’s Personal Connection:
  Mark Hertling recounts working closely with Ukrainian military leaders, particularly General Hennadiy Vorobiov, who was instrumental in uprooting Soviet-era corruption and reforming Ukraine’s armed forces along Western lines.
• U.S.-Ukrainian Military Cooperation:
  The support involved joint training, educational exchanges, and anti-corruption campaigns that profoundly changed Ukraine’s military culture, differentiating it starkly from Russia’s.

“They were a terrible army. They were crooked. They still had the stench of the Soviet Union on them. But Vorobiov… went on an anti-corruption campaign and… turned the place around.”
— Mark Hertling (01:44)

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2. The "Peace Plan": Details and Dangers (04:59–08:02)

• Rewarding Russian Aggression:
  Both Kristol and Hertling are alarmed at the presented 28-point peace plan which appears to reward Russia with Ukrainian territory (Donbas, Crimea), limit Ukraine’s military, hinder Western support, and impose Russian linguistic and religious privileges—echoing core Russian demands.
• Historical and Cultural Ignorance:
  Hertling criticizes U.S. officials for failing to understand the depth of historic trauma between Ukraine and Russia, likening current proposals to enabling another “frozen conflict”—a recurring feature of Russian regional aggression.

“It just smacks of rewarding Russia for aggression and criminal activities and terrorism and the invasion of another country.”
— Mark Hertling (03:44)

“…do what Putin's always dreamed of, which is kind of obliterating Ukraine's separate national identity.”
— Bill Kristol (05:19)

“…it's just ludicrous to me that we would be accepting of that.”
— Mark Hertling (07:52)

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3. Exclusion of Ukraine and European Allies (08:02–09:33)

• Lack of Consultation:
  Hertling points out the deal was negotiated between U.S. and Russian envoys, excluding Ukraine and European allies—despite Europe’s immediate stake in regional security.
• European Perspective:
  Europeans, having faced decades of Russian intimidation, are “viscerally” opposed to such concessions and can’t comprehend U.S. willingness to abandon the alliance’s values.

“It's not in the region for them. It's next door. They see Russian sabotage teams… Kremlin hackers… They've lived with this kind of Russian intimidation for decades.”
— Mark Hertling (08:47)

“They can't understand why the United States is not standing up for its values.”
— Mark Hertling (09:24)

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4. Will Zelensky and Europe Stand Firm? (09:33–10:06)

• Hertling is confident that Zelensky and all European states will reject this “peace deal,” noting acceptance would be both a strategic and moral failure for the West.

“He'll get the backing of every single European state to not accept this.”
— Mark Hertling (09:46)

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5. Broader U.S. Strategic Withdrawal (10:06–11:50)

• Worrying Signals Beyond Ukraine:
  U.S. is scaling back military presence and influence—removing forces from Romania, withdrawing carrier strike groups, and suggesting surrender of key NATO positions to Germany—prompting European doubts about U.S. commitments.
• Alliance Undermined:
  Hertling stresses the danger of weakening a strong, 70-year-old alliance that underpins European and, by extension, U.S. security.

“You see this constant drip of things that seem to be completely ignoring an alliance that we've had in place for 70 years…”
— Mark Hertling (11:28)

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6. American Attention and Political Support (11:50–12:59)

• Fading Focus:
  Hertling laments that U.S. public and political attention has drifted away from Ukraine, despite its vital geostrategic importance.
• Policy Risks:
  He fears that distraction with domestic controversies makes it easier for damaging policies to prevail.

“…for the first two years of this conflict, everyone was really focused on the courageous fight of the Ukrainians. It's no longer in the headlines.”
— Mark Hertling (12:24)

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7. Values, Precedent, and the Putin Factor (12:59–14:11)

• Global Implications:
  Kristol highlights that Ukraine’s fate affects the larger world order and U.S. values.
• Putin’s Influence:
  Hertling bluntly compares Putin to a criminal who has repeatedly manipulated Western leaders—including Trump, whom he accuses of wanting to “be best friends” with Putin.

“Putin is not only a criminal…he's much worse than Epstein. So it's just another person you want to collude with to… our greater detriment.”
— Mark Hertling (13:39)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On U.S. Policy:
  “…it’s just ludicrous to me that we would be accepting of that.” (Mark Hertling, 07:52)

• On European Sentiment:
  “They see Russian sabotage teams on a daily basis… They can't understand why the United States is not standing up for its values.” (Mark Hertling, 08:47–09:24)

• On Putin:
  “Putin is not only a criminal, but he's sometimes very charismatic… Now we've got Trump, who wants to be best friends with him, and they don't understand that you're dealing with a murderer.” (Mark Hertling, 13:35)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Transformation of Ukrainian Army: 01:07–04:59
• Details of U.S.-Russia “Peace Plan”: 04:59–08:02
• Exclusion of Ukraine/Europe from Talks: 08:02–09:33
• Zelensky’s Position & European Unity: 09:33–10:06
• U.S. Disengagement and NATO Concerns: 10:06–11:50
• Waning U.S. Political Support: 11:50–12:59
• Global Consequences/Putin’s Manipulation: 12:59–14:11

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Final Takeaways

This episode challenges U.S. policy shifts that jeopardize Ukraine’s sovereignty and broader Western interests. Both the guest and host warn of the dangers of appeasing Russian aggression, underestimating European resolve, and drifting away from the principles that have grounded transatlantic alliances for decades.

The tone is urgent and critical, with repeated calls for renewed U.S. attention to Ukraine—and to the values at stake in the conflict.

Transcript

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[Bill Kristol]

Hi, Bill Kristol here with my colleague Mark Hertling, retired lieutenant general of the U.S. army and a very valued Bulwark military analyst and our v military analyst at the Bulwark. Very high honor. Anyway, we were talking about the news from Ukraine. The news about Ukraine, the Russian US Apparent, I don't know, deal on an apparent quote, peace plan which is, I don't know, may or apparently being imposed on Ukraine. Tell us about it. You've followed this so closely. You were in Europe so many years and know the Ukraine situation so well. So what's, what's, what's up?

[Mark Hertling]

Well, I first, Bill, you know this, but I'm a bit biased toward Ukraine because I had the opportunity to work with the Ukrainian military for a couple of years and met the individual that literally transformed the army in Ukraine. A colonel general by the name of Henadai Vorobiov. And I've never told his story before, but General Vorobiov was part of the Soviet Union, part of the Soviet army for the first 20 years of his life. And then when Ukraine gained their independence, he went back to Ukraine and became a National Guardsman, rose all the way up. Or their equivalent of the National Guard rose all the way up to be the chief of their ground forces. The very first stop I made when I was newly installed as the commander of US Army Europe was to Ukraine. And I had dealt with the Ukrainians in Iraq in 2004, and they were a terrible army. They were crooked. They still had the stench of the Soviet Union on them. But Robiov approached me with a list of things that he wanted to help him do. He wanted me to help him do. And what I found out later is he had written a PhD thesis on the transformation of the Ukrainian army to Western approaches. So he gave me this list of saying, hey, I want my soldiers to go to your NCO academy in Grafenwehr. I Want you to do more training exercises with us if you can. Can you get more Ukrainian colonels into your war college? Because we have a dearth of good leaders at the senior rank. He said a lot of them are all still Soviet leaning and that's what's corrupting our military. So he went on an anti corruption campaign and for several years before the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, he was doing his best to turn the place around. What I did with him over a couple of years is not only do the training bases and the exchanges and the exercises with their army, but he taught me about the Ukrainian culture. So I bought into what he showed me. And at the same time, Bill, and I've said this before, I was also visiting Russia and I was comparing the two armies, the Russian army versus the Ukrainian army, the Russian culture and the Ukrainian culture. And it was just, it was night and day. So with that as kind of a prelude, what I'm seeing now, which is really sort of distressing is, you know, I admire the administration for attempting to bring about the peace process to do something that will stop the killing. But if that is the approach and it's not being done with an understanding of the sovereignty and national territorial integrity of Ukraine and the cultural dynamics of that country, and most importantly the reflection of what US Values are to a partner, then I think we're doing something wrong. And in viewing the elements of this 28 point peace plan that were presented by Secretary Rubio and Envoy Witkoff, it just smacks of rewarding Russia for aggression and criminal activities and terrorism and the invasion of another country. And I just don't understand why our administration is putting all the onus on Ukraine to accept a proposal that is deleterious to what the outcome is and what they've suffered over the last four years as they've fought off the fourth largest army in the world.

[Bill Kristol]

A friend of mine who knows much more about this than I do says that the headlines are that they have to give back land and they also would that it's really just a bunch of honestly sort of Putin talking points almost. I mean, that they'd have to cut their army, we wouldn't be able to have help them. They would all kinds of things, of course, no NATO. So there would be a huge risk in terms of their basic national security as well as giving back parts of provinces. And then also on the kind of cultural side which you began with, I was interested that you did. I mean, you know, Russia would be, have to be recognized as an official language, the Russian Orthodox Church gets special treatment. I mean, a real attempt to basically lay the groundwork. Do you think this is right? As my friend said, do what Putin's always dreamed of, which is kind of obliterating Ukraine's separate national identity.

[Mark Hertling]

Well, it's interesting to me, and again, I don't mean to insult the Secretary of State or Mr. Witkoff, but it really appears they have no understanding of the history between Ukraine and Russia. You know, what you just mentioned, even the history of the language, of not even being able to speak the Ukrainian language for about 40 years. That was the case inside of Ukraine. It was like a criminal offense to speech. Ukrainian inside of Ukraine. And when you go back to Ann Applebaum's great book about the Red Famine, the title of the book about the 1930s, where Stalin killed about 30,000 Ukrainian people through starvation, you don't understand the implications and the hatred between these two countries and for Ukraine to fight as well as they have and to be united not only with their army and their government, but also with their people to suffer the things that they've suffered and still want to continue seeking their determination of who they are. It just smacks to me of just craziness that we would be on the side of Putin in this kind of event. And even if you say the 28 points, some of them would be concluded, and. And. And Russia would get the Donbas, which is two major provinces that they don't have, oblast, which they don't have right now, and Crimea. You're talking about the potential for another frozen conflict. And in my time in Europe, there were a total of five frozen conflicts. Moldova with Transnistria, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Crimea and the Donbas and Georgia. And four of those five are still in place. So what you're saying is Russia will take a bite out of a country, which they've done in those, all five of those frozen conflicts, stick around for a while, reboot, regenerate, and then come back and do it again. So it's a continual attrition warfare under the guise of a peace process. And it's just ludicrous to me that we would be accepting of that.

[Bill Kristol]

And it seems to be something that we discussed with the Russians, but Ukraine and the Europeans, for that matter, or European allies who were also Ukraine's allies, had no real part in the discussion. Is that your understanding?

[Mark Hertling]

That's my understanding, yeah. This was something put together by an envoy from Russia along with Mr. Witkoff and Secretary Rubio. And Rubio, I saw a statement by him the other day where he said, well, this is just the going in position. Well, it's insulting. It's insulting to Ukraine and it's insulting to the United States, if we really understood the history of it. The other concern that I'll state, having spent 12 years of my life in Europe as part of the military, it's how much the Americans underestimate how viscerally our European allies have experienced this war and other wars within the region. It's not in the region for them. It's next door. They see Russian sabotage teams on a daily basis caught with explosives at power stations. They see Kremlin hackers probing parliaments. They see criminals and murderers attacking their parliamentarians. And they've lived with this kind of Russian intimidation for decades. And all of our European allies, the. The 49 countries in Europe other than Belarus, understand exactly what's going on and they want no part of it. And they can't understand why the United States is not standing up for its values.

[Bill Kristol]

How dangerous is it that we could muscle Zelensky into accepting this? Could he accept this?

[Mark Hertling]

You know, that's a great question. I don't think he will accept this. And he'll get the backing of every single European state to not accept this. But in the interim, we are embarrassing ourselves not just from the standpoint of not supporting Ukraine, but I think we're furthering, furthering the embarrassment of the United States on the European continent and anybody else in the world that sees what we're doing.

[Bill Kristol]

I think it's such an important point. I mean that if you, if you're elsewhere, if you're in Asia, if you're anywhere in the world, it's not as if we're under huge press. It's not like Vietnam. We're losing, you know, thousands of soldiers or spending. Or Iraq or losing soldiers and spending hundreds of billions, I suppose, billions of dollars. What are we doing? We're not. Ukraine is. I mean, they're fighting, they're dying. They're fighting very bravely. We're helping a little bit, but honestly, at this point, it's a rounding error in our overall, you know, I imagine, defense budget and so forth. And I mean, I myself would much prefer to see much more aggressive aid for Ukraine, but at least, why not just keep the status quo? What's the pressure to do this? I guess I really don't understand it in that respect.

[Mark Hertling]

Why, you know, what I'll say too, is it, it comes along with some other pointed issues that we're seeing beyond Ukraine. So within the last month, there's been an announcement of taking forces US Forces out of Romania in our forward basing the Ford Strike Group. Carrier strike group has left the Mediterranean Red Sea area, which is an overwatch of the European continent as well as the Middle east and Africa. A few days ago, the U.S. ambassador to NATO said that we should give up the sack your position to the Germans. What you see is this constant drip of things that seem to be completely ignoring an alliance that we've had in place for 70 years, which is very strong militarily, politically and economically. And I can't see the upside of doing any of these things. But especially when you're turning back on a country that wants to be like us, that wasn't like us before and is contrary to one of our foes in the region.

[Bill Kristol]

Very worrisome. Do you feel final question. I mean, you're in touch with a lot of people. Is there a bit of a rebellion against this among people who have supported Ukraine over the last three years? There are quite a lot of people on the Hill and in the foreign policy community, the national security establishment, who must look at this and think, what are we doing?

[Mark Hertling]

I mean, I'll be honest with you, Bill, that's where I'm also troubled, because we seem to be so intent on focusing on things like true social comments from the president about sedition or the Epstein files or ice on the streets that, you know, it's fascinating that for the first two years of this conflict, everyone was really focused on the courageous fight of the Ukrainians. It's no longer in the headlines. People don't understand why it's important. So even you just doing this interview with me, I think, is going to bring some additional attention to it. But it seems to have fallen off the items of interest for, for most of the American public and I'd also include for most of our representatives in Congress who have something to do with making this happen.

[Bill Kristol]

Well, I hope we do get more attention. As you say, there's important geostrategic implications, but also about American values and the shape of the world order, not just precise. Not that what happens in Europe is awfully important to what happens. Ukraine itself isn't very, very important, but it has such broad implications. It seems to me that this path we sort of have embarked on, I suppose it's not too late to turn around, though, perhaps, and the Trump administration has a certain amount of, you know, they have had other false starts. Maybe people are a little too confident for that reason that this is just another talking point. But if you negotiate it with the Russians. That has a little bit of a different status, don't you think? I mean, it's a little harder just to walk this one back, unfortunately.

[Mark Hertling]

Well, you know, just like many other leaders, Putin is not only a criminal, but he's sometimes very charismatic and he can sway other authoritarian leaders. I mean, every single president we've had has said, I either see inside their soul or I know what he's thinking. Or now we've got Trump, who wants to be best friends with him, and they don't understand that you're dealing with a murderer. I mean, he's worse than Epstein. I'll put it that way. He's much worse than Epstein. So it's just another person you want to collude with to the. To our greater detriment.

[Bill Kristol]

That's a sobering note to end on, but an important one, and I hope this conversation does. It's been very educational for me and thank you for really, Mark, for really taking the time to help educate all of us on this challenge we now face.

[Mark Hertling]

Thanks, Bill. I appreciate you asking about this one. Appreciate it.

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