The argument surrounding Donald Trump’s approach to Ukraine has just become considerably more uncomfortable.
For months, Ukrainians have watched Washington apply increasing pressure on Kyiv to make concessions to Russia.
Jared Kushner has now openly suggested that Ukraine withdrawing from territory demanded by Vladimir Putin could unlock a peace agreement.
Speaking to the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv, Kushner described territory as the central unresolved issue and said that if Ukraine withdrew to the line demanded by Putin, much of the remainder of an agreement was effectively within reach.
For Ukrainians, including myself, that is already an extraordinary proposition.
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Russia invaded Ukraine who now occupies Ukrainian territory, but Russia claims territory its military has still failed to capture. Yet Ukraine is increasingly portrayed as the obstacle to peace because it refuses to voluntarily withdraw from land Putin has been unable to seize militarily.
Now, however, another question hangs over the credibility of that process.
A major investigation by ProPublica reports that Russian businessman Umar Kremlev, a figure with close connections to Vladimir Putin, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars towards celebrations surrounding Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding in the Bahamas.
Umar Kremlev, the Putin-linked Russian oligarch who reportedly bankrolled hundreds of thousands of dollars of Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding celebrations, is also heavily involved with Healthy Fatherland.
The organisation is under Ukrainian sanctions for its alleged role in… pic.twitter.com/pFXjJZ9Ymr
— Shaun Pinner (@ShaunPinnerUA) September 15, 2026
Trump Jr. and his wife have acknowledged Kremlev’s generosity, although they dispute the characterisation that he paid for their wedding itself, saying instead that their “dear friend” hosted two nights of celebrations after the ceremony as a wedding gift.
That distinction does little to resolve the much bigger political question.
Why is a Kremlin-connected Russian businessman giving gifts reportedly worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the US President’s son, while the President’s administration is attempting to negotiate the future of Ukraine?
Kremlev is not simply a wealthy Russian businessman.
He heads the International Boxing Association, which has previously received substantial financial backing from Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. Putin awarded Kremlev Russia’s Order of Friendship in April this year, while Ukraine has sanctioned him over his links to Putin and Russian security structures.
According to the ProPublica investigation, Kremlev has also been heavily involved with an organisation called Healthy Fatherland.
And this is where the story becomes particularly disturbing for Ukrainians.
Healthy Fatherland is under Ukrainian sanctions over allegations concerning its involvement in programmes that removed Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territories and relocated them under the guise of rehabilitation.
There is no evidence presented by the reporting that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner or Donald Trump participated in, knew about, or supported the alleged removal of Ukrainian children.
But that does not make the connection politically irrelevant, particularly when the allegations surrounding Healthy Fatherland are documented by Ukraine’s military intelligence authorities.
Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate describes the organisation as participating in an organised mechanism involving the abduction, illegal deportation and forced relocation of Ukrainian citizens, including children, from Russian-occupied territories, including through programmes presented as evacuation, rehabilitation and education.
Russia’s deportation and unlawful transfer of Ukrainian children is not some peripheral controversy surrounding this war. It sits at the centre of one of the gravest accusations made against the Kremlin, and reaches directly to Vladimir Putin himself.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova in 2023 over the alleged war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine.
So Ukrainians are entitled to ask some difficult questions.
A Putin-connected Russian businessman, himself sanctioned by Ukraine and reportedly involved with an organisation sanctioned over its alleged role in programmes involving Ukrainian children, provides extraordinarily expensive hospitality to the American President’s son.
Meanwhile, members of that same American President’s family are participating in diplomacy that increasingly asks Ukraine to give Russia more territory and, inevitably, more Ukrainians.
I am pretty sure everyone can see the overlap and potential breach of interests clearly here, because perception matters enormously in diplomacy.
And it would appear so. I have already written about my own reaction to Kushner’s proposal. My criticism of him passed 2 million views on X because, I suspect, it touched something far larger than my own anger.
My family has already lost our home in Crimea following Russia’s seizure of the peninsula in 2014. We also lost our home again in Mariupol following the full-scale invasion.
We are still waiting for the “1,000-for-1,000” prisoner exchange Trump announced, and that never happened.
So forgive me if I don’t put much stock in this latest claim. Let’s see what actually happens. pic.twitter.com/TQ5zUxF0iM
— Shaun Pinner (@ShaunPinnerUA) September 14, 2026
Millions of Ukrainians have similar stories.
These are not coloured sections on somebody’s negotiating map. People live there, and we live there.
Many of them are Russian-speaking Ukrainians, including my family and many of my friends, who have watched the supposed Russian “liberation” of their communities arrive through missiles, occupation, filtration, torture, deportation and destroyed cities.
And now the proposed solution appears remarkably simple: give Putin more.
More territory.
More strategically important ground.
And, most importantly, more Ukrainians living on that territory.
Then trust him to stop.
That was already an extraordinarily difficult proposition to accept. These latest revelations make the people delivering that proposition deserving of even greater scrutiny.
Former US Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor has pointed out that Steve Witkoff and Kushner travelled repeatedly to Moscow before finally visiting Kyiv. Meanwhile, the political pressure increasingly appears to fall on Ukraine: concede territory, compromise, restrain attacks inside Russia and find the elusive “win-win”.
My question remains: where exactly is Ukraine’s win?
Donald Trump has now publicly called on President Zelensky to stop striking Russian diesel infrastructure, even as Russia continues attacking Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.
Again, where is the equivalent pressure on Putin?
None of this proves that the Trump administration’s Ukraine policy is being dictated by Moscow, and it would be irresponsible to claim that it does.
But it does create entirely legitimate questions about judgement, access, conflicts of interest and the credibility of people attempting to present themselves as neutral intermediaries between Russia and Ukraine.
If you are asking millions of Ukrainians to trust you while negotiating their homes and futures, the standard should be exceptionally high.
And if members of the US President’s immediate family are simultaneously accepting enormous gifts or hospitality from businessmen closely connected to the Kremlin, Ukrainians have every right to ask whether that standard is being met.
For me, the connection to Ukrainian children makes the story particularly difficult to stomach.
I have seen what Russian captivity means. I have seen what happened to Mariupol. I know many families whose lives have been destroyed by this war. That is why the language surrounding these negotiations matters, and why the current events are so sickening.
When Washington talks casually about territorial concessions, it is not merely proposing that Ukraine surrender fields and towns on a map.
It is discussing placing potentially enormous numbers of Ukrainian citizens under the authority of the same state accused of torture, forced deportations, filtration and the unlawful transfer of Ukrainian children.
And now we discover that a Putin-linked Russian figure reportedly connected to an organisation sanctioned over allegations involving those very children has been providing lavish hospitality to the US President’s family.
Perhaps there are innocent explanations for those relationships, but Ukraine should not be expected simply to ignore them, peace negotiations require trust.
Who exactly are Ukrainians being asked to trust?
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