🔗 Share this article

Initially, Donald Trump seemed to adopt a strong approach concerning Ukraine. After making threats of "significant consequences" during the summer in case Putin persisted obstructing peace talks, he ultimately enacted considerable sanctions on Russia's two largest energy firms, Lukoil and Rosneft. This action substantially hindered Putin's ability to finance his military invasion in Ukraine.

But, through his newly presented 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, reportedly drafted by both nations' representatives without Ukrainian or European involvement, he has clearly gone back to his Russia-friendly position.

Favoring Aggression

This initiative would effectively favor Putin for invading a sovereign nation while putting the country's political freedom in danger. Despite ringing proclamations that "The nation's sovereignty will be affirmed", large portions of the plan in reality undermine that very autonomy. What represents a Moscow's wish would likely be a disaster for Ukraine.

Reflecting his corporate experience, the former president persists to consider the situation in Ukraine as a basic territorial dispute, as if handing Russia a part of Ukraine's land will satisfy the leader. But, Russia's military campaign is not simply about dominating a damaged region of industrial-devastated territory in eastern Ukraine. It is about Ukraine's democracy – and Putin's obvious goal to destroy it so it ceases to functions as an appealing example for the Russia's population of the responsible leadership that his growing authoritarian rule prevents them.

Land Concessions

Although keeping in position the already separated Ukrainian provinces of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Trump's proposal would require Ukraine to abandon the whole this eastern territory. In addition to benefiting the Russian Federation with area that its forces have been failed to seize in over a ten years of warfare, this surrender would leave Ukraine's defenses critically compromised.

The area is the site of the nation's much-vaunted "defensive line", the fortified protective structures that are a key barrier to invading forces. Trump would have Ukraine abandon these positions, leaving Russian forces a clear route to the capital in case he eventually choose to restart the hostilities.

Military Limitations

Then, in a move that would make future conflict easier for Russia, the plan would force the nation to cut the size of its armed forces from their existing approximately 800,000 soldiers to a maximum of six hundred thousand. Significantly, the initiative places no such constraints on Russia's military.

Seemingly as a concession to Putin's attempts to portray Ukraine's democratically elected government as Nazis, the proposal states: "Any radical belief system and practices must be rejected and banned." As if to highlight this point, it demands that "The nation will hold political contests in three months" of a truce. At the same time, Trump sets no obligation that Putin endanger his dictatorship by conducting democratic processes in Russia.

Defense Assurances

Certainly, the plan has Russia promise not to "invade other states" and to "establish in legislation its stance of non-aggression towards Europe and the Ukrainian people". However given that Putin has breached similar treaties in the history – such as the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which Russia pledged to honor the nation's sovereignty in return for giving up its former Soviet atomic arms, and the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, in which Moscow agreed to a truce and a restoration of captured land in eastern Ukraine to Ukrainian control – why should anyone believe this commitment on this occasion?

That is why Ukraine has been so determined on western protection assurances. While the initiative warns of a "immediate unified military response" in case Russia resume its military campaign, and includes that "Ukraine will receive reliable defense commitments", the specifics include unclear to alarming. The plan would not only prevent Ukraine Nato membership but also preclude Nato members from deploying military personnel on Ukraine's soil, effectively precluding the peacekeeping contingent, reportedly led by the UK and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been depending to prevent Russia from rebuilding his reduced troops, restocking, and resuming aggression.

World Reaction

A separate supplementary accord apparently would offer the nation with a similar to NATO defense commitment, in which any subsequent "major, deliberate, and continuous aggression" by the Russian Federation on the country "would be considered as an assault threatening the tranquility of the Western nations." This implies a defense action. But in contrast to a strong national defense – the nation's best protection against additional hostilities – the success of the supplementary deal would rely on the willingness of alliance members, like the US administration, to act through arms to Russia's aggression, an action they have {not