🔗 Share this article

At first, the former US president seemed to adopt a firm stance regarding Ukraine. After making threats of "severe repercussions" last August in case Vladimir Putin carried on obstructing truce discussions, Trump finally imposed major restrictions on the Russian primary energy firms, these major energy companies. This decision seriously impacted the Russian leader's capacity to fund his military invasion in Ukraine.

Yet, through his recently unveiled 28-point peace proposal for Ukraine, reportedly developed by both nations' officials lacking Ukraine's or EU participation, he has clearly reverted to his favorable to Russia stance.

Favoring Aggression

This plan would in practice favor the Russian leader for invading Ukraine while placing the country's political freedom in jeopardy. Despite bold proclamations that "Ukraine's autonomy will be confirmed", large portions of the proposal effectively weaken that essential sovereignty. This constitutes a Moscow's wish would certainly be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Demonstrating his corporate experience, the former president persists to view the Ukrainian conflict as a mere territorial dispute, implying giving Putin a section of Ukrainian territory will satisfy the president. Yet, Putin's invasion is not simply about occupying a charred area of deindustrialized area in eastern Ukraine. Rather, it is about the nation's political system – and the Russian leader's clear intention to destroy it so it no longer functions as an attractive standard for the Russian people of the accountable governance that Putin's growing autocracy denies them.

Land Giveaways

While freezing in place the already split oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Trump's plan would force the nation to abandon all of this eastern territory. Beyond rewarding Russia with land that its military have been unsuccessful to occupy in exceeding a lengthy period of warfare, this giveaway would leave Ukraine's defenses dangerously compromised.

This region is the place of Ukraine's much-vaunted "fortress belt", the fortified defensive positions that constitute a key impediment to enemy progress. Trump would have the Ukrainian military surrender these fortifications, leaving Putin a clear route to Kyiv if he later choose to resume the hostilities.

Military Restrictions

Additionally, in a step that would facilitate additional fighting easier for the Russian military, the plan would require the nation to diminish the size of its troops from their existing approximately 800,000 personnel to a maximum of 600,000. Importantly, Trump's plan places no similar limits on Russian forces.

Apparently as a concession to Russia's attempts to depict Ukraine's chosen by the people government as Nazis, the proposal asserts: "All Nazi ideology and actions must be opposed and prohibited." Seemingly to underscore this element, it requires that "Ukraine will hold political contests in this period" of a peace deal. However, Trump places no condition that Putin jeopardize his regime by holding votes in Russia.

Protection Assurances

Certainly, the initiative makes Russia commit not to "attack bordering nations" and to "incorporate in law its position of peaceful relations towards the EU and Ukraine". But taking into account that the Russian leadership has violated similar treaties in the previous instances – for example the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which the Russian government pledged to recognize Ukraine's borders in return for giving up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons, and the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, in which Russia agreed to a truce and a restoration of captured territory in eastern Ukraine to Kyiv – how should we trust Putin this time?

This explains the Ukrainian government has been so adamant on external security guarantees. Although the proposal threatens a "decisive unified armed reaction" should Russia resume its aggression, and provides that "The nation will receive reliable security guarantees", the specifics range from fuzzy to concerning. The proposal would not just block Ukraine Nato membership but also preclude Nato members from stationing troops on Ukraine's soil, thereby preventing the reassurance force, likely led by the UK and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been depending to prevent Russia from replenishing his reduced forces, rearming, and attacking again.

Global Concern

A separate supplementary accord reportedly would grant Ukraine with a alliance-like defense commitment, in which any later "serious, deliberate, and continuous aggression" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "would be considered as an act of war endangering the peace and security of the allied countries." This indicates a defense action. Yet unlike a strong Ukrainian military – Ukraine's primary defense against additional invasion – the credibility of the supplementary deal would hinge on the commitment of alliance members, like the US administration, to react militarily to Russia's aggression, a response they have {not