The Former President's Ukraine Peace Plan Represents a Gift to Vladimir Putin

For a brief period, Donald Trump gave the impression to adopt a firm approach on Ukraine. After delivering threats of "severe ramifications" during the summer in case Vladimir Putin carried on obstructing peace negotiations, Trump ultimately enacted substantial sanctions on Russia's primary energy firms, Rosneft and Lukoil. This move seriously affected Putin's capacity to fund his military invasion in Ukraine.

But, with his recently unveiled detailed peace initiative for Ukraine, which was created by US and Russian representatives lacking Ukrainian or European participation, Trump has clearly gone back to his favorable to Russia approach.

Rewarding Aggression

Trump's initiative would effectively reward Putin for attacking Ukraine while putting Ukraine's political freedom in jeopardy. Despite bold statements that "Ukraine's sovereignty will be affirmed", significant aspects of the initiative actually compromise that essential independence. Seen as a Moscow's wish would likely be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Reflecting his real-estate past, the former president continues to view the Ukrainian conflict as a mere territorial dispute, like giving Putin a section of Ukrainian soil will satisfy the ruler. However, Russia's invasion is not merely about dominating a charred swath of economically weakened area in eastern Ukraine. Instead, it's about Ukraine's democratic governance – and Putin's apparent goal to weaken it so it ceases to serves as an appealing standard for the Russia's population of the accountable governance that Putin's growing dictatorship withholds them.

Border Surrenders

Although freezing in position the presently split oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Trump's initiative would force Ukraine to surrender all of this eastern territory. In addition to favoring Russia with territory that its forces have been failed to seize in over a ten years of warfare, this surrender would render Ukraine's defensive positions severely weakened.

The area is the site of the nation's well-known "fortress belt", the fortified protective structures that are a key impediment to Russian advances. The proposal would have the Ukrainian military leave these defenses, providing Russian forces a clear way to Kyiv in case he later choose to restart the war.

Defense Limitations

Furthermore, in a action that would enable renewed hostilities easier for the Russian military, Trump would mandate Ukraine to cut the scale of its troops from their current 800,000 to 850,000 personnel to a maximum of 600,000. Importantly, Trump's proposal imposes no equivalent constraints on Russia's military.

Seemingly as a gesture to Putin's attempts to depict Ukraine's chosen by the people administration as Nazis, the plan declares: "All Nazi belief system and actions must be condemned and banned." Apparently to underscore this aspect, it requires that "Ukraine will hold democratic votes in this period" of a peace deal. Meanwhile, Trump sets no requirement that the Russian leader jeopardize his dictatorship by conducting democratic processes in his own country.

Protection Assurances

To be sure, the plan has Russia pledge not to "enter neighboring countries" and to "enshrine in law its policy of non-aggression towards the EU and the Ukrainian people". Yet considering that the Russian leadership has broken comparable agreements in the past – for example the 1994 agreement, in which the Russian government committed to recognize the nation's borders in return for giving up its former Soviet nuclear weapons, and the previous peace deals, in which Russia promised to a ceasefire and a return of occupied land in the Donbas to the government – for what reason should we believe this commitment now?

For this reason Ukraine has been so insistent on external security guarantees. Although the initiative warns of a "immediate unified defense action" if Russia renew its military campaign, and states that "The nation will receive dependable protection assurances", the details vary from vague to troubling. The plan would not only deny Ukraine alliance membership but also prohibit Nato members from positioning forces on Ukraine's soil, thus blocking the peacekeeping contingent, presumptively led by the UK and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been depending to deter Putin from restoring his reduced military, re-equipping, and resuming aggression.

World Response

An additional side agreement according to sources would offer the nation with a similar to NATO protection assurance, in which any future "significant, deliberate, and continuous armed attack" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "will be treated as an attack endangering the peace and security of the allied countries." That suggests a armed reaction. Yet unlike a powerful Ukraine's armed forces – Ukraine's primary deterrent against future hostilities – the effectiveness of the parallel accord would depend on the commitment of Nato leaders, like the US administration, to react militarily to Putin's attacks, a response they have {not