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Initially, Donald Trump appeared to embrace a strong stance regarding the Ukrainian conflict. Following making threats of "severe ramifications" during the summer if Vladimir Putin persisted hindering truce negotiations, Trump eventually enacted substantial restrictions on the Russian biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. This move significantly hindered the Russian leader's ability to finance his aggression in Ukraine.

But, with his newly presented comprehensive peace initiative for Ukraine, which was created by American and Russian representatives lacking Ukraine's or EU input, Trump has seemingly gone back to his pro-Putin position.

Favoring Invasion

Trump's proposal would effectively benefit the Russian leader for attacking Ukraine while putting the country's democracy in jeopardy. Despite bold declarations that "Ukraine's independence will be confirmed", significant aspects of the proposal in reality weaken that very independence. Seen as a Kremlin dream would certainly be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Showing his corporate experience, Trump persists to view the war as a mere border issue, as if giving Putin a part of Ukraine's land will appease the leader. Yet, Russia's war is not only about dominating a destroyed region of industrial-devastated area in Ukraine's east. Rather, it is about Ukraine's political system – and the Russian leader's apparent goal to destroy it so it no longer serves as an appealing standard for the Russian people of the responsible leadership that Putin's growing autocracy denies them.

Territorial Giveaways

While keeping in status the currently separated oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, the initiative would require Ukraine to give up the whole Donetsk province. Beyond rewarding the Russian Federation with territory that its troops have been failed to capture in more than a lengthy period of conflict, this surrender would leave Ukrainian defenses dangerously weakened.

Donetsk is the site of Ukraine's well-known "defensive line", the entrenched military defenses that constitute a key obstacle to Russian advances. The proposal would have Ukraine abandon these defenses, giving Russian forces a clear path to the capital in case he subsequently decide to renew the hostilities.

Military Limitations

Then, in a step that would make additional hostilities simpler for Russia, Trump would mandate the nation to diminish the size of its armed forces from their current approximately 800,000 personnel to a maximum of 600,000. Significantly, the initiative sets no similar constraints on Russia's military.

In what appears as a concession to Putin's efforts to depict Ukraine's chosen by the people administration as extremists, the proposal declares: "Every Nazi doctrine and practices must be opposed and forbidden." Apparently to underscore this element, it requires that "Ukraine will hold elections in this period" of a peace deal. However, Trump imposes no requirement that Putin endanger his dictatorship by allowing votes in Russia.

Protection Assurances

Admittedly, the plan makes Russia pledge not to "invade other states" and to "enshrine in law its policy of peaceful relations towards the EU and Ukraine". However given that the Russian leadership has violated similar accords in the past – for example the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which Russia committed to recognize the nation's sovereignty in exchange for relinquishing its former Soviet nuclear arsenal, and the Minsk accords, in which Moscow committed to a ceasefire and a return of captured land in the Donbas to Ukrainian control – for what reason should anyone have confidence in this commitment on this occasion?

For this reason Ukraine has been so determined on western defense commitments. Although the proposal threatens a "immediate joint armed reaction" in case Russia restart its aggression, and provides that "The nation will receive reliable protection assurances", the details vary from unclear to troubling. The plan would not only prevent Ukraine alliance membership but also prohibit member states from positioning troops on Ukraine's soil, thus blocking the peacekeeping contingent, presumptively commanded by Britain and France, on which Ukraine had been counting to stop Putin from rebuilding his diminished military, rearming, and attacking again.

World Concern

A separate parallel deal according to sources would offer Ukraine with a alliance-like security guarantee, in which any subsequent "significant, deliberate, and sustained armed attack" by the Russian Federation on the country "will be treated as an attack jeopardizing the stability and safety of the allied countries." That suggests a military response. But different from a strong Ukrainian military – the nation's best deterrent against future invasion – the credibility of the parallel accord would depend on the commitment of Western powers, including the US administration, to respond with force to Russia's hostilities, a response they have {not