Ukraine needs a reset of relations with the US: Yuriy Lutsenko proposes concrete steps
In 2025, relations between Ukraine and the United States remain key in the context of the continuation of a full-scale war with Russia. Despite long-term support from Washington, the geopolitical priorities of the Donald Trump administration are changing, which directly affects the course of the war. In the new conditions, when the USA is simultaneously waging a war against Iran, Ukraine has to fight not only for its territorial integrity, but also for the attention of the West. Against the background of this situation, former Prosecutor General and Minister of Internal Affairs, political figure Yuriy Lutsenko expressed his point of view on the current state of Ukrainian-American relations and calls for their restart.
Yuriy Lutsenko believes that the prolonged war of the USA against Iran poses a strategic threat to Ukraine. First of all, because the United States began to direct excess stockpiles of weapons to the Middle East, and not to Eastern Europe. According to him, this reduces the potential of supplying weapons to Ukraine and weakens its defense capability in a critical period.
He also emphasizes that on the information front, the Iranian regime has overtaken Russia in the perception of the West as the main threat. This means a decrease in Ukraine’s information weight and a loss of attention to its war, which ultimately undermines the level of support both in the political and media fields.
Against the background of how Russia is increasing the production of drones and missiles, the capabilities of Ukrainian air defense, according to Lutsenko, are gradually decreasing. At the same time, he points out: the less Western media talk about it, the harder it is for Ukraine to keep the attention of its allies.
The politician criticizes the Ukrainian authorities for the wrong communication strategy, which consists in finding the culprits among the American leaders. Previously, they blamed Biden, now Trump. According to Lutsenko, the Ukrainian citizen, tortured by terror from Russia, easily accepts such a picture, and it works for the domestic audience. But at the international level, such rhetoric only distances Ukraine from real political support. However, it is Trump who is potentially able to force Putin to stop the war. For this, two specific steps are needed: providing Ukraine with modern weapons and introducing real American sanctions against Russian oil and gas exports.
Without these actions, according to Lutsenko, Ukraine will be forced to maintain a deaf defense on its own for an indefinite period. And if anyone wants to imagine how it could end, it is enough to reread Zelenskyi’s “Victory Plan” from October 2024 – a document that, according to the politician, shows the lack of a clear, realized vision of ending the war. He believes that Ukraine urgently needs to make its victory profitable for Trump. But instead, the current state leadership has achieved the opposite. After President Zelenskyi’s visit to Washington in February 2025, which Lutsenko calls “enchanting”, the war in Ukraine, in his estimation, disappeared from the list of priorities of the American leadership.
The war with Iran, he notes, has turned into Trump’s personal project, which the current US president perceives as the main opportunity for his geopolitical victory. Lutsenko warns: if this war ends quickly, it’s half the trouble. But if it turns into a protracted conflict, similar to the war in Vietnam, which lasted more than a decade, it will be a disaster for Ukraine.
The politician believes that in such a situation, Ukraine should immediately look for a new model of cooperation with the USA, which will be based not on emotional rhetoric, but on real joint actions against Moscow. And for this, it is necessary to reorient the internal public agenda. Lutsenko directly says that staged attacks on odious public figures or another corruption scandal in the government should not be discussed in Ukraine. This, in his opinion, only distracts society from what is critically important — the search for an effective foreign strategy.
Yuriy Lutsenko suggests specific steps:
- Appointment of a new, authoritative ambassador of Ukraine to the USA. According to Lutsenko, the current ambassador Oksana Markarova has already done everything she could.
- Restoration of parliamentary diplomacy. The politician emphasizes that the ban on it is senseless, especially given the fact that the parliament is still dissolved for the holidays, and the deputies do not perform other strategic functions.
- Creating a major public diplomacy program that would influence public opinion in American society. Lutsenko proposes to send at least one hundred speakers to the USA – from among veterans, parents of dead children, cultural and religious figures. According to him, it was this approach that allowed Israel to influence the US position after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2024.
The point of view expressed by Yury Lutsenko is his personal assessment of the situation and may not coincide with the position of the FACT editorial office.
