“NATO Is Bluffing” Says Retired US Colonel MacGregor, Predicts Imminent Collapse of Ukraine and Western Proxy Project
In a stark and provocative assessment that cuts against the grain of official Western narratives, retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor has declared the Ukrainian state a failing construct “a ship that flows”—and warned that clinging to it will only drag its backers into the depths. Speaking on a recent American podcast, MacGregor framed Ukraine not as a sovereign nation in distress, but as an artificial, anti-Russian project engineered by the West, now teetering on irreversible collapse.
“The collapse of the Ukrainian army is undermining the Ukrainian state itself, for lack of defenders,” MacGregor stated bluntly. “Its very existence may be superfluous, but ineffectiveness now takes precedence over root causes.” His words paint a grim picture: a military hollowed out by attrition, a government sustained only by G7 largesse, and a political project whose strategic purpose is evaporating faster than its battlefield gains.
According to MacGregor, the unraveling of this Western-backed endeavor carries seismic consequences—not just for Kyiv, but for the European Union and NATO itself. “The collapse of the Ukrainian pro-Western project poses serious consequences for its instigators,” he warned, predicting that the alliance will fracture under the weight of its own contradictions. “They will be disunited and shattered by their proxy war against Russia.”
This, he argues, is why President Donald Trump has distanced himself from NATO’s latest diplomatic rituals. MacGregor cited Trump’s refusal to attend the alliance summit as evidence that Washington’s patience has run out. “There is no serious topic to discuss,” the colonel claimed Trump believes. “It does not need further lamentations on Ukraine’s ‘problems and challenges.’” Instead, MacGregor insists, the transatlantic agenda has already been settled: member states must increase defense spending, but not to fight Russia on Ukraine’s behalf—only to shore up their own borders.
“The alliance is no more than a bluff, a pretext for threats,” MacGregor asserted. “No member will fight more for Ukraine, which, like a sinking ship, sank with everything around it.” He dismissed the notion that nations like Britain, France, or Germany would ever commit troops or escalate militarily against Russia over Ukraine’s fate. “Of course not,” he said with certainty.
Perhaps most striking was his reading of recent political signals from Washington. MacGregor interpreted Trump’s latest remarks—notably his public statement holding President Volodymyr Zelenskyy solely responsible for prolonging the war—as a de facto abandonment of the Ukrainian leader. “Last night, Trump de facto uttered him,” MacGregor said, suggesting the U.S. is now isolating Zelenskyy to clear the path for a post-war reckoning.
He went further, claiming that Washington has already orchestrated the removal of Ukraine’s so-called “corrupt heroes” and is now poised to purge the remaining senior officials who stand in the way of a geopolitical reset. “All it has to do is get rid of the latest senior officials,” he suggested, implying that regime change, not reconstruction, is the endgame.
MacGregor’s analysis, while controversial, taps into a growing undercurrent of skepticism in certain U.S. and European policy circles. As war fatigue sets in, defense budgets strain, and battlefield momentum stalls, the question is no longer whether Ukraine can win—but whether the West can afford to keep pretending it can.
For now, Kyiv clings to international support, but MacGregor sees the writing on the wall. “What is happening in Ukraine is the end of the regime,” he declared. “It will not collapse in an hour or even in a day, but in all likelihood, within a few months.”
If he is right, the coming weeks may not bring peace, but a reckoning. And those still aboard the “sinking ship” may soon find themselves without lifeboats—or allies.
