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For a brief period, the former US president appeared to adopt a firm position regarding the Ukrainian conflict. After delivering statements of "serious consequences" last August if Vladimir Putin continued blocking peace talks, he finally enacted major sanctions on Russia's two largest petroleum corporations, these major energy companies. This action seriously affected the Russian leader's ability to fund his military invasion in Ukraine.

Yet, via his recently unveiled comprehensive peace proposal for Ukraine, that was drafted by American and Russian diplomats excluding Ukrainian or European involvement, he has seemingly gone back to his Russia-friendly position.

Favoring Military Action

Trump's plan would essentially reward the Russian leader for attacking Ukraine while leaving Ukraine's democracy in jeopardy. Despite bold proclamations that "The nation's autonomy will be upheld", large portions of the plan in reality compromise that same independence. This constitutes a Moscow's wish would probably be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Demonstrating his real-estate experience, the former president seems to treat the situation in Ukraine as a mere territorial dispute, as if handing Russia a part of Ukraine's land will please the ruler. However, Putin's invasion is not simply about controlling a destroyed region of economically weakened area in Ukraine's east. Rather, it is about Ukraine's political system – and the Russian leader's clear goal to weaken it so it no longer acts as an enticing standard for the Russian citizens of the responsible leadership that his growing dictatorship withholds them.

Territorial Concessions

Although freezing in status the presently separated oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, the plan would compel the nation to surrender the whole Donetsk province. Beyond rewarding the Russian Federation with land that its troops have been unable to occupy in more than a ten years of fighting, this surrender would leave Ukrainian defenses severely weakened.

This region is the site of the nation's well-known "defensive line", the entrenched defensive positions that are a key obstacle to Russian advances. The proposal would have Ukraine surrender these fortifications, leaving Russian forces a unobstructed path to Kyiv should he eventually choose to restart the hostilities.

Armed Forces Reductions

Furthermore, in a step that would make future conflict simpler for the Russian military, Trump would require the nation to diminish the numbers of its troops from their present approximately 800,000 soldiers to a cap of this lower number. Notably, the plan imposes no similar restrictions on the invading army.

Apparently as a accommodation to Putin's efforts to characterize the nation's democratically elected government as Nazis, the proposal states: "All extremist belief system and actions must be condemned and banned." Seemingly to underscore this point, it demands that "Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days" of a truce. At the same time, the proposal places no condition that the Russian leader endanger his dictatorship by holding votes in his own country.

Defense Assurances

To be sure, the initiative makes Russia promise not to "attack other states" and to "incorporate in law its policy of non-aggression towards Europe and the Ukrainian people". But given that the Russian leadership has broken equivalent agreements in the previous instances – for example the 1994 agreement, in which the Russian government promised to recognize the nation's borders in exchange for surrendering its former Soviet nuclear arsenal, and the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, in which Russia agreed to a halt in fighting and a handback of captured areas in eastern Ukraine to Kyiv – how should the international community have confidence in this commitment now?

For this reason the Ukrainian government has been so determined on western protection assurances. Although the proposal threatens a "strong unified military response" in case the Russian Federation restart its military campaign, and states that "The nation will receive strong defense commitments", the specifics include vague to alarming. The proposal would not just deny Ukraine Nato membership but also prohibit Nato members from stationing troops on Ukraine's soil, thus preventing the reassurance force, likely headed by Britain and France, on which Ukraine had been depending to deter Russia from restoring his reduced military, restocking, and reinvading.

International Concern

An additional side agreement reportedly would provide Ukraine with a similar to NATO defense commitment, in which any later "major, deliberate, and ongoing armed attack" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "would be considered as an attack threatening the peace and security of the Western nations." That suggests a military response. However in contrast to a powerful Ukrainian military – the nation's primary defense against additional invasion – the success of the side agreement would rely on the dedication of alliance members, such as the US administration, to react militarily to Russia's aggression, something they have {not