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For a brief period, the former US president appeared to embrace a firm position on the Ukrainian conflict. Following making statements of "serious repercussions" in August in case Russia's president continued blocking peace negotiations, he ultimately introduced major penalties on Russia's primary oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft. This decision seriously hindered the Russian leader's capability to support his aggression in the region.

However, with his newly presented detailed peace proposal for Ukraine, which was developed by American and Russian representatives excluding Ukraine's or European involvement, he has apparently gone back to his pro-Putin approach.

Benefiting Aggression

This proposal would effectively reward Putin for attacking Ukraine while placing Ukraine's democratic system in danger. Despite ringing proclamations that "The nation's sovereignty will be upheld", much of the proposal in reality weaken that very independence. This constitutes a Russian ideal would likely be a catastrophe for the nation.

Reflecting his corporate past, the former president continues to consider the situation in Ukraine as a basic border issue, implying ceding Putin a part of Ukraine's soil will please the leader. However, Russia's military campaign is not only about dominating a charred area of deindustrialized land in the Donbas region. Instead, it's about the nation's democracy – and the Russian leader's clear desire to destroy it so it ceases to functions as an appealing example for the Russian people of the responsible governance that his deepening dictatorship prevents them.

Border Concessions

While maintaining in position the presently separated Ukrainian provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the plan would compel Ukraine to give up the entire Donetsk region. Beyond benefiting Russia with area that its forces have been unsuccessful to capture in exceeding a lengthy period of warfare, this giveaway would render Ukraine's military defenses severely undermined.

The area is the location of Ukraine's highly-touted "stronghold system", the entrenched defensive positions that are a critical barrier to invading forces. Trump would have Ukraine abandon these fortifications, providing Putin a clear route to the capital should he eventually opt to restart the hostilities.

Military Restrictions

Furthermore, in a move that would facilitate renewed hostilities more feasible for Russia, the plan would force the nation to diminish the numbers of its troops from their existing 800,000 to 850,000 soldiers to a limit of six hundred thousand. Notably, the initiative places no equivalent limits on Russia's military.

Seemingly as a concession to Russia's campaign to depict the nation's chosen by the people administration as radicals, Trump's proposal states: "All radical doctrine and actions must be opposed and prohibited." Apparently to emphasize this aspect, it demands that "The nation will hold elections in this period" of a truce. However, the proposal imposes no condition that the Russian leader jeopardize his dictatorship by holding elections in Russia.

Defense Guarantees

To be sure, the proposal makes Russia promise not to "enter bordering nations" and to "enshrine in law its position of non-aggression towards Europe and the Ukrainian people". Yet considering that the Russian leadership has violated comparable agreements in the history – for example the 1994 agreement, in which Russia promised to respect Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for surrendering its former Soviet nuclear weapons, and the Minsk accords, in which Russia promised to a truce and a restoration of occupied territory in eastern Ukraine to the government – why should the international community trust Putin now?

That is why Ukraine has been so insistent on international security guarantees. While the proposal promises a "decisive coordinated military response" in case Russia renew its military campaign, and states that "The nation will receive reliable protection assurances", the particulars include vague to troubling. The plan would not only block the nation alliance membership but also preclude Nato members from stationing military personnel on Ukraine's soil, effectively preventing the security presence, reportedly led by Britain and France, on which Ukraine had been depending to prevent Putin from replenishing his reduced military, rearming, and reinvading.

World Concern

A separate parallel deal apparently would provide the nation with a Nato-style security guarantee, in which any later "serious, intentional, and continuous armed attack" by Russia on Ukraine "shall be regarded as an attack jeopardizing the stability and safety of the allied countries." This indicates a defense action. Yet different from a capable national defense – Ukraine's primary deterrent against renewed Russian aggression – the credibility of the side agreement would rely on the commitment of Western powers, such as Trump, to respond with force to Putin's aggression, a response they have {not