🔗 Share this article

Initially, Trump seemed to embrace a firm approach on Ukraine. After making warnings of "severe consequences" in August should Vladimir Putin persisted hindering peace discussions, Trump eventually enacted considerable restrictions on the Russian two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. This decision substantially affected the Russian leader's capacity to fund his aggression in Ukraine.

However, through his recently unveiled 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, reportedly drafted by US and Russian diplomats without Ukrainian or EU involvement, Trump has apparently gone back to his Russia-friendly position.

Favoring Military Action

This plan would essentially favor the Russian leader for invading Ukraine while leaving the country's political freedom in jeopardy. Despite strong proclamations that "The nation's independence will be confirmed", significant aspects of the proposal in reality weaken that essential autonomy. Seen as a Moscow's wish would probably be a disaster for Ukraine.

Reflecting his real-estate experience, the former president continues to consider the situation in Ukraine as a simple border issue, implying handing Russia a section of Ukrainian land will please the ruler. Yet, Putin's military campaign is not merely about controlling a damaged area of deindustrialized territory in the Donbas region. Instead, it's about the nation's democracy – and the Russian leader's obvious intention to weaken it so it ceases to functions as an appealing example for the Russia's population of the accountable government that his increasing authoritarian rule denies them.

Territorial Concessions

Although keeping in status the currently separated Ukrainian provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Trump's proposal would compel Ukraine to abandon all of this eastern territory. Aside from favoring the Russian Federation with territory that its military have been unsuccessful to occupy in exceeding a lengthy period of conflict, this surrender would make Ukrainian military defenses critically weakened.

Donetsk is the place of Ukraine's much-vaunted "defensive line", the entrenched defensive positions that are a essential obstacle to invading forces. Trump would have the Ukrainian military leave these positions, providing Putin a unobstructed path to the capital should he eventually choose to restart the war.

Defense Limitations

Additionally, in a move that would enable renewed conflict easier for Russia, Trump would require Ukraine to reduce the size of its troops from their current 800,000 to 850,000 personnel to a maximum of six hundred thousand. Importantly, the initiative places no equivalent restrictions on Russia's military.

In what appears as a concession to Russia's campaign to characterize the nation's chosen by the people government as radicals, Trump's proposal asserts: "Every Nazi doctrine and activities must be condemned and prohibited." Apparently to highlight this element, it insists that "Ukraine will hold political contests in this period" of a ceasefire agreement. Meanwhile, the proposal places no obligation that Putin endanger his dictatorship by conducting democratic processes in his own country.

Defense Guarantees

Certainly, the initiative has the Russian Federation commit not to "invade bordering nations" and to "enshrine in legislation its position of non-violence towards European nations and the Ukrainian people". However given that the Russian leadership has breached similar agreements in the history – including the Budapest accord, in which the Russian government promised to respect the nation's territorial integrity in exchange for giving up its historical nuclear weapons, and the Minsk accords, in which Moscow promised to a ceasefire and a handback of occupied territory in the region to the government – how should the international community trust this commitment on this occasion?

For this reason the Ukrainian government has been so adamant on external protection assurances. While the proposal warns of a "decisive coordinated military response" if Russia restart its aggression, and includes that "Ukraine will receive strong protection assurances", the specifics vary from vague to alarming. The proposal would not just prevent the nation accession to NATO but also prohibit Nato members from deploying forces on Ukrainian territory, thus preventing the peacekeeping contingent, reportedly headed by Britain and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been relying to deter Putin from restoring his diminished forces, rearming, and reinvading.

Global Reaction

An additional supplementary accord reportedly would offer the nation with a alliance-like protection assurance, in which any subsequent "major, deliberate, and sustained aggression" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "would be considered as an act of war endangering the tranquility of the Western nations." This indicates a defense action. However different from a capable national defense – Ukraine's most reliable protection against future invasion – the success of the side agreement would hinge on the commitment of Nato leaders, like the US administration, to act with force to Russia's attacks, something they have {not