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For a brief period, Donald Trump gave the impression to take a resolute approach on the Ukrainian conflict. Following delivering warnings of "significant ramifications" last August if Russia's president carried on obstructing truce negotiations, he eventually imposed considerable sanctions on the Russian two largest energy firms, Lukoil and Rosneft. This action seriously impacted the Russian leader's capacity to fund his war effort in the region.

Yet, with his latest detailed peace initiative for Ukraine, that was developed by US and Russian officials excluding Ukrainian or EU participation, Trump has apparently returned to his favorable to Russia position.

Benefiting Invasion

This initiative would in practice reward the Russian leader for occupying a sovereign nation while putting Ukraine's democracy in peril. Although bold declarations that "The nation's sovereignty will be affirmed", much of the initiative actually weaken that essential sovereignty. Seen as a Kremlin dream would probably be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Demonstrating his business past, the former president persists to view the Ukrainian conflict as a simple territorial dispute, implying ceding Russia a part of Ukrainian territory will appease the leader. However, Russia's invasion is not simply about dominating a destroyed area of industrial-devastated territory in Ukraine's east. Instead, it's about Ukraine's democracy – and the Russian leader's apparent intention to destroy it so it no longer functions as an appealing model for the Russia's population of the accountable government that his deepening dictatorship prevents them.

Territorial Surrenders

Although freezing in position the currently divided Ukrainian provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Trump's initiative would compel the nation to abandon the whole Donetsk province. In addition to favoring Russia with territory that its troops have been unable to seize in over a lengthy period of warfare, this giveaway would leave Ukrainian defensive positions critically undermined.

This region is the location of Ukraine's highly-touted "stronghold system", the entrenched military defenses that are a essential impediment to Russian advances. Trump would have the Ukrainian military surrender these fortifications, giving Putin a open route to Kyiv in case he subsequently opt to renew the war.

Armed Forces Restrictions

Furthermore, in a step that would make future conflict more feasible for the Russian military, Trump would require the nation to cut the scale of its troops from their present large number personnel to a cap of 600,000. Importantly, Trump's plan imposes no such limits on the invading army.

In what appears as a accommodation to Russia's attempts to depict Ukraine's democratically elected leadership as radicals, the plan declares: "Every Nazi belief system and actions must be condemned and forbidden." Apparently to highlight this point, it demands that "The nation will hold political contests in this period" of a peace deal. At the same time, the proposal imposes no requirement that Putin jeopardize his authoritarian rule by holding elections in Russia.

Defense Assurances

Certainly, the plan has the Russian Federation promise not to "attack neighboring countries" and to "enshrine in legislation its position of non-aggression towards the EU and Ukraine". Yet taking into account that the Russian leadership has violated equivalent accords in the past – for example the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which the Russian government promised to honor Ukraine's sovereignty in return for relinquishing its former Soviet atomic arms, and the previous peace deals, in which Moscow agreed to a truce and a handback of seized territory in the Donbas to Kyiv – how should anyone have confidence in Russia this time?

That is why Ukraine has been so insistent on western protection assurances. Although the initiative threatens a "immediate joint armed reaction" if Russia restart its aggression, and includes that "The nation will receive strong protection assurances", the particulars range from unclear to alarming. The plan would not just block the nation accession to NATO but also prohibit Nato members from positioning military personnel on Ukraine's soil, thereby precluding the security presence, reportedly commanded by the UK and France, on which Ukraine had been counting to stop Russia from restoring his reduced forces, re-equipping, and attacking again.

World Reaction

A separate side agreement reportedly would offer the nation with a Nato-style defense commitment, in which any later "serious, deliberate, and continuous military assault" by Russia on Ukraine "will be treated as an attack endangering the peace and security of the Western nations." This implies a defense action. But unlike a capable national defense – the nation's primary protection against additional invasion – the success of the supplementary deal would depend on the willingness of alliance members, such as the US administration, to respond through arms to Putin's hostilities, an action they have {not