🔗 Share this article

For a brief period, Donald Trump appeared to take a firm position regarding Ukraine. Following making statements of "severe repercussions" during the summer should Russia's president persisted blocking peace negotiations, Trump eventually enacted major restrictions on the Russian biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. This move seriously hindered Putin's ability to finance his aggression in the region.

However, through his newly presented comprehensive peace plan for the conflict, which was drafted by American and Russian officials lacking Ukrainian or European involvement, he has apparently returned to his Russia-friendly approach.

Benefiting Aggression

This initiative would in practice favor Putin for attacking Ukraine while placing the country's political freedom in peril. Despite strong proclamations that "Ukraine's autonomy will be affirmed", significant aspects of the initiative effectively weaken that very independence. What represents a Kremlin dream would likely be a catastrophe for the nation.

Demonstrating his business background, Trump seems to view the war as a simple border issue, implying handing Russia a section of Ukraine's soil will appease the president. Yet, Putin's invasion is not merely about dominating a damaged region of industrial-devastated land in the Donbas region. It is about the nation's political system – and the Russian leader's obvious intention to eliminate it so it stops acts as an enticing model for the Russian people of the accountable governance that his growing dictatorship denies them.

Border Giveaways

While maintaining in status the currently separated regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, the proposal would require the nation to abandon all of Donetsk province. Aside from benefiting Russia with land that its troops have been unable to occupy in over a decade of warfare, this giveaway would render Ukrainian defenses severely undermined.

Donetsk is the site of the nation's much-vaunted "fortress belt", the entrenched military defenses that represent a critical impediment to enemy progress. Trump would have the Ukrainian military surrender these positions, leaving Russian forces a open path to the capital in case he eventually decide to resume the war.

Defense Restrictions

Additionally, in a action that would facilitate future hostilities more feasible for Russia, the plan would force Ukraine to cut the numbers of its armed forces from their existing large number soldiers to a limit of this lower number. Importantly, the initiative sets no such restrictions on Russia's military.

Apparently as a gesture to Russia's attempts to depict the nation's chosen by the people administration as radicals, Trump's plan declares: "Every Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and banned." Apparently to emphasize this element, it demands that "The nation will hold political contests in this period" of a peace deal. Meanwhile, the proposal sets no requirement that the Russian leader risk his regime by holding votes in Russia.

Defense Guarantees

Admittedly, the plan includes Russia promise not to "attack bordering nations" and to "incorporate in law its stance of non-violence towards the EU and Ukraine". However taking into account that Putin has breached equivalent treaties in the past – such as the 1994 agreement, in which Russia promised to honor the nation's territorial integrity in return for surrendering its former Soviet nuclear arsenal, and the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, in which Russia agreed to a ceasefire and a return of occupied territory in the region to the government – why should the international community have confidence in Putin this time?

That is why the Ukrainian government has been so insistent on external security guarantees. While the initiative threatens a "immediate coordinated armed reaction" in case Russia resume its military campaign, and provides that "Ukraine will receive dependable defense commitments", the specifics include unclear to alarming. The proposal would not just block Ukraine Nato membership but also prohibit alliance nations from positioning military personnel on the nation's land, effectively precluding the reassurance force, presumptively commanded by the UK and France, on which Ukraine had been depending to prevent Russia from rebuilding his weakened forces, re-equipping, and reinvading.

Global Response

Another supplementary accord according to sources would provide Ukraine with a Nato-style protection assurance, in which any subsequent "significant, planned, and continuous aggression" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "would be considered as an attack endangering the stability and safety of the transatlantic community." That suggests a military response. However in contrast to a capable Ukrainian military – Ukraine's most reliable deterrent against future hostilities – the success of the supplementary deal would depend on the willingness of Nato leaders, like the US administration, to react militarily to Putin's aggression, an action they have {not