As Washington considers the extent of U.S. involvement in Ukraine, a set of broader questions are raised. What does it mean to defend liberty abroad? Can war crimes be deterred through diplomacy alone? And does American security still depend on containing authoritarian regimes?
These questions arise with the mission of Marc Wheat of Advancing American Freedom, who visited Ukraine alongside Mike Pence in 2023. He offers views on the physical toll of Russia’s invasion, and on the moral and strategic stakes that echo Cold War-era lessons.
With tens of thousands of documented war crimes, abducted Ukrainian children, and alliances under strain, Wheat insists that the United States cannot afford to forget why it has historically resisted Russian aggression—and what is lost when it doesn’t.
Advancing American Freedom is a conservative organization founded by Vice President Mike Pence. As its General Counsel, Wheat brings a legal mind and public service experience to the debate over U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine. He is a former Deputy Assistant General Counsel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, staff director for the U.S. House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, and senior advisor at the State Department. His 2023 trip, he says, gave him direct exposure to the moral stakes of the conflict and what he says is the strategic necessity for supporting Ukrainian sovereignty.
“We thought, you know, the Russians are going to be a little distracted—now might be a good time to go to Kyiv,” Wheat says, referencing the timing of their visit immediately following the Wagner Group’s attempted coup in Russia.
Traveling by night train from Poland to Kyiv under the protection of a State Department warning to Russia, he recounts tense moments, such as stopping beside a petroleum supply depot—”maybe this is not going to end well,” he recalls thinking.
What followed was a deeply personal tour of Ukrainian villages, where Wheat and Pence met civilians who pushed Russian forces back using U.S.-supplied anti-tank weapons. “We got to meet some of the people who pushed the Russians back,” he says, calling it “a remarkable experience to see someone who survived to tell the tale of the first European war since World War II.”
Villagers told Pence how their homes, destroyed by Russian artillery, were rebuilt through American charity via Samaritan’s Purse. “There were villagers hugging him, in tears, telling him how grateful they were to American donors.”
Wheat emphasizes that Pence is well known and respected in Ukraine. “He’s long been outspoken that we need to safeguard NATO’s flank by stopping the Russians in Ukraine.” The memory of Zelensky refusing evacuation in the early days of the war—“What I really need is weapons. I’m staying”—still resonates as a turning point, Wheat says.
For Wheat, the moral clarity of the Cold War remains relevant. “The linchpin of American foreign policy since the defeat of Nazi Germany has been containment of Russia… If [freedom fighters] are willing to fight, we are willing to arm them.” The collapse of deterrence, he says, must be met with consequences: “Don’t make this some kind of achievement of Putin.”
He pushes back against any romanticizing of Putin’s leadership. “He’s killed 700 to 800,000 Russians, dead and wounded… That’s not someone who will go down in history as a protector of Russia,” he says.
Wheat also describes systemic religious persecution under Russian occupation. “We met with prelates in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church… Protestant leaders… we had a wreath-laying at the mass grave of all these civilians who were killed.” Russia’s goal, according to Wheat, is terror: “They pulled civilians from their homes, tied them up, shot them point blank, and left their bodies in the street.”
Wheat says Russian war crimes are thoroughly documented. “The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Kyiv said there are approximately 150,000 documented war crimes in Ukraine. It’s shocking. We haven’t seen anything like that since the Nazis overran Europe.”
Commenting on recent reports of a Trump-Putin phone call, Wheat says he hopes “there was some chastising by the President of the United States.”
Russia’s reliance on North Korean troops, Iranian drones, and Chinese financing shows, in Wheat’s view, the desperate nature of Putin’s regime. “He’s up to his eyeballs in evil,” he says.
Wheat believes negotiating with the Russians is futile based on past efforts. “They lied on every agreement they made with the U.S. during the Cold War… Ukraine gave up all their nuclear weapons in exchange for territorial integrity. That was completely dismissed,” he says. Russian behavior, according to him, only responds to “strength and consequences.”
Wheat welcomes the Vatican’s potential role in brokering peace, praising Pope Leo’s involvement: “I hope this pope remembers the moral authority that Pope John Paul II brought… when he told Poland ‘Be not afraid,’ that broke the evil empire. Three words.”
But even as diplomatic options are explored, he warns against undermining alliances. “It was a bridge too far to say Ukraine started this war… it shook our European allies to the core,” he says. He’s wary of attempts to paint Ukraine as provocateurs. “That is just not logical–it’s not true.”
He also supports a bipartisan resolution in Congress demanding the unconditional return of abducted Ukrainian children. “We met a young man, about 14, who had been abducted to Russia,” Wheat says. “They took all his papers… gave him a new name and birth date.” The child eventually escaped on foot and returned to Ukrainian territory, but many others remain unaccounted for. “There’s a massive trafficking in persons—maybe 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted.”
Wheat urges Americans not to forget what history has taught. “We should not unlearn everything we learned in the Cold War about how Russia behaves,” he says. “Helping countries who are fighting for their own freedom saves the liberty of others—and our own men and women in uniform.”
