KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s top general has publicly thanked the departing head of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, Gen. Christopher Donahue, for helping build and sustain Washington’s support pipeline to Kyiv as the officer relinquished his post on Thursday after an unexpectedly brief 18 months in command.
Word broke June 23 that the four-star general had submitted his retirement papers after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth personally requested that he resign, according to multiple reports. The Army has yet to provide a definitive reason for the change.
Donahue’s predecessor, Gen. Darryl Williams, held the post for nearly two and a half years. Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, Donahue’s deputy, took over in an acting capacity Thursday after a farewell ceremony at the Clay Kaserne headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Within days of the news, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, held a phone call with Donahue and published a farewell on his personal social media accounts, thanking the outgoing official for creating a partnership that he said delivered long-range systems, strengthened Ukraine’s air defenses and saved thousands of Ukrainian lives.
The two military leaders have worked together since the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, when Syrskyi, then chief of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, directed the defense of Kyiv and Donahue led the 82nd Airborne Division into southeastern Poland. Their partnership has only strengthened over the years, Syrskyi said.
“In the most challenging moments of our war for freedom and independence, Chris Donahue has proven himself not only as a military leader but also as a man of his word and honor,” Syrskyi wrote on Telegram.
“Ukrainian warriors will always hold General Donahue in the highest esteem.”
The farewell, meanwhile, lands at a fraught moment in U.S.-Ukraine relations. The Trump administration has questioned the value of Kyiv’s fight in the past, even as the U.S. military incorporates more Ukrainian battlefield know-how amid its war with Iran.
Now, the American general who built the Army’s support machinery for Ukraine is out, and Syrskyi’s public tribute shows Kyiv knows what it stands to lose.
According to two U.S. officials cited by CBS News, Donahue “had earned the ire” of Hegseth, and the two men met in person only once, in February 2025.
Asked about accusations that Hegseth forced the general out over a personal grudge, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell provided no explanation.
“General officers and flag officers serve at the pleasure of the president and the secretary of war,” Parnell told the Daily Beast on Sunday. “They always have and always will.”
The departure extends a shake-up that has removed or replaced at least a dozen senior military leaders since Hegseth took office, with many of the moves made without public explanation.
U.S. President Donald Trump praised Donahue in January, when Fox News host Brian Kilmeade visited the general’s Wiesbaden headquarters and put Donahue on the phone with the president as his soldiers gathered around, according to Stars and Stripes.
“You’re doing a fantastic job,” Trump said. “Your reputation is great.”
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine is among those seeking a presidential waiver so Donahue can retire at four stars, a rank he has held for fewer than the three years federal law requires to retire at that grade, two sources told CBS News.
The Wiesbaden headquarters itself is officially being downgraded to a three-star command, part of Hegseth’s push to cut the number of four-star billets, Stars and Stripes reported. U.S. Air Forces in Europe lost its fourth star in a similar move last year.
Donahue has said nothing publicly about the circumstances of his exit, and the subject went unmentioned at Thursday’s ceremony. He thanked his troops in his farewell remarks, instead.
“I love this team — it has been the honor of a lifetime to be a part of it. I’m proud of what we built and I have absolute confidence in what you will build next,” Donahue said, according to an Army release.
Donahue was promoted to four stars in December 2024, when he took over U.S. Army Europe and Africa and, with it, command of NATO’s Allied Land Command in Izmir, Turkey. The combined headquarters developed the Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative, a warfighting concept that integrates allied land forces, drones and data under NATO’s defense plans for its eastern flank, according to the Army.
Donahue “saw the need to change, developed a plan, inspired others and built the processes to ensure it endures well beyond his tenure — and allies have bought in,” Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, said at the ceremony, according to the Army release.
Donahue was also the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan, photographed in night vision boarding the final C-17 out of Kabul in August 2021.
Brett McGurk, who served as special presidential envoy to the coalition against the Islamic State, told CBS News that Donahue is “among the most consequential commanders of his generation,” and retired Gen. Tony Thomas, a former head of U.S. Special Operations Command, called him a “generational leader.”
The ouster has drawn criticism from retired military leaders and lawmakers across the aisle.
The “decision to force [Donahue] out says far more about Hegseth than it does about General Donahue,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., wrote in a post on X last week, calling the move “yet another unforced error from a Secretary leading the Pentagon with bro-culture bravado rather than restraint, humility and careful stewardship of the finest fighting force in the world.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe, called Donahue the “best soldier in the Army today” in his own post. “Kremlin and terrorist organizations will be relieved to know that he will soon be gone.”
European officials fear the exit foreshadows a U.S. drawdown from the roughly 80,000 American troops on the continent, Newsweek reported.
The news came out just days after Hegseth criticized European allies over low defense spending and announced a six-month review of U.S. forces in Europe.
Retired Adm. William McRaven, who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, wrote in The Atlantic that the dismissals “raise a real risk that senior officers will be overly cautious about providing their best advice and, therefore, that the chance of military miscalculation will grow dramatically.”
Lt. Gen. Kevin Admiral, who leads the Army’s III Armored Corps, is the frontrunner to permanently replace Donahue in Wiesbaden, a U.S. military official told Newsweek, though no final decision has been made and the nomination would require Senate confirmation.
Donahue will formally hand the NATO post to its deputy, British Lt. Gen. Jez Bennett, at a July 9 ceremony in Izmir, Turkey. Bennett will serve as acting commander until another American officer is assigned, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe spokesman Col. Martin O’Donnell told CBS News.
Donahue closed his farewell remarks with a question.
“When people ask me, ‘Hey CD, what was it like to be a part of United States Army Europe and Africa?’ I only have to tell them how proud and unbelievably grateful I am to have been a part of the United States Army’s premier warfighting headquarters.”
Katie Livingstone is the Ukraine correspondent for Defense News and Military Times. Based in Kyiv, she has covered Russia’s full-scale invasion since its first days. She is a former Fulbright fellow whose award-winning work has appeared in outlets across Europe and the U.S.
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