Yes. The Doha Agreement that Zalmay Khalilzad signed with the Taliban's Mullah Baradar on February 29, 2020 became a direct reference point in later Ukraine aid debates, because it set the troop-withdrawal terms that preceded Kabul's 2021 collapse. Lawmakers, President Volodymyr Zelensky, and foreign policy analysts have invoked it repeatedly as a cautionary precedent while arguing over U.S.
support for Ukraine. The deal itself excluded the Afghan government from its own peace talks, a structural choice that later shaped how officials and commentators read Trump's approach to Russia-Ukraine diplomacy. Understanding that link helps explain why Doha keeps surfacing whenever U.S. aid to Ukraine, or a negotiated settlement with Russia, comes up for debate.
Table of Contents
- What Was the Doha Agreement, and Why Does It Matter for Ukraine?
- How Zelensky Invoked Doha to Argue for Ukraine Aid
- How Critics Used Doha to Warn About Trump's 2025 Ukraine Diplomacy
- Where the Afghanistan-Ukraine Comparison Breaks Down
- What This Means for Readers Tracking Ukraine Aid and Diplomacy
What Was the Doha Agreement, and Why Does It Matter for Ukraine?
The Doha Agreement was a February 2020 deal between the Trump administration and the Taliban, negotiated by U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and signed with Taliban leader Mullah Baradar. It established a timeline for U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and notably left the internationally recognized Afghan government out of the negotiations, according to RFE/RL.
That exclusion is the detail that keeps reappearing in Ukraine coverage. U.S. defense leaders later identified it as a central flaw: Gen. Frank McKenzie described the deal's effect as "really pernicious," and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin agreed it helped the Taliban grow "stronger" in the months before the Afghan government fell in 2021, according to Arise News. That assessment, made by the officials responsible for the withdrawal, is what gives Doha its weight as a precedent in later foreign policy debates, including those over Ukraine.
How Zelensky Invoked Doha to Argue for Ukraine Aid
On April 21, 2024, after the U.S. House passed a $61 billion Ukraine aid package, Zelensky told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the aid proved Ukraine would not become "a second Afghanistan," according to Kyiv Post. The comparison tied Afghanistan's 2021 collapse directly to the stakes of the aid vote, framing continued U.S.
support as the alternative to a Kabul-style outcome for Kyiv. That framing worked because the Afghanistan withdrawal was still a live political reference point two years after Doha was signed. Zelensky's remark used the memory of that collapse, and the exclusion of the Afghan government that preceded it, to argue that abandoning an ally mid-conflict carries a cost the United States had already paid once.
How Critics Used Doha to Warn About Trump's 2025 Ukraine Diplomacy
The same Doha precedent has also been used against Trump, not on his behalf. Hoover Institution fellow Lisa Curtis, a former Trump National Security Council official, argued that the deal's core flaw — sidelining the Afghan government from its own peace talks — was repeated in 2025 when Trump sought to exclude Zelensky from Ukraine-Russia negotiations, according to the Hoover Institution.
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UK Parliament member and Afghanistan veteran Mike Martin went further, calling the Doha deal a "capitulation" and warning that Trump was attempting to engineer a similarly forced outcome against Ukraine. Martin advised Kyiv not to rely on the United States, according to the Kyiv Independent. A Chicago Tribune syndicated column raised the same question directly, asking whether Trump would repeat his Doha-style concessions in Russia-Ukraine diplomacy, and pointed to the 2025 U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal and ceasefire pressure on Kyiv as evidence of a recurring negotiating pattern, according to the Chicago Tribune via AOL.
Where the Afghanistan-Ukraine Comparison Breaks Down
The analogy has a real limit that commentators have flagged. Yahoo News noted that the United States had maintained 20 years of troops in Afghanistan, while Ukraine is a sovereign state facing a foreign invasion with no U.S. troops deployed there at all, according to Yahoo News.
That difference limits how directly Doha's specific terms — a withdrawal timeline for an occupying force — can be mapped onto a war where the United States isn't a combatant. What carries over isn't the military situation but the negotiating structure: a deal reached without the party actually fighting the war at the table. That structural parallel, rather than the troop-withdrawal mechanics, is what both Zelensky's supporters and Trump's critics have continued to invoke.
What This Means for Readers Tracking Ukraine Aid and Diplomacy
Doha's influence on Ukraine debates has been rhetorical rather than a direct template for aid legislation or treaty terms. Zelensky cited it to build the case for more U.S. assistance, while critics of Trump's 2025 diplomacy cited it to warn against repeating a deal that sidelines the ally doing the fighting, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Neither use set binding terms for an aid package or a settlement. Readers tracking future Ukraine aid votes or ceasefire negotiations can watch for two signals tied directly to this precedent: whether Zelensky or Ukrainian officials participate directly in any settlement talks, and whether U.S. officials invoke the Doha comparison themselves when defending or criticizing a given approach. Both have been reliable markers of how the Afghanistan precedent is being used in a given moment.
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