Donald Trump's Ukrainian Peace Plan Represents a Benefit to Putin

For a brief period, Donald Trump gave the impression to take a strong approach concerning the Ukrainian conflict. After delivering warnings of "severe consequences" last August if Vladimir Putin continued blocking truce negotiations, he eventually introduced major penalties on Russia's two largest petroleum corporations, Rosneft and Lukoil. This decision substantially hindered the Russian leader's capacity to finance his military invasion in the region.

But, through his newly presented 28-point peace plan for the conflict, reportedly drafted by US and Russian officials without Ukrainian or EU involvement, the former president has clearly gone back to his pro-Putin stance.

Benefiting Aggression

The former president's plan would effectively benefit the Russian leader for invading a sovereign nation while placing the country's democratic system in jeopardy. Despite strong proclamations that "The nation's autonomy will be upheld", large portions of the initiative actually weaken that essential independence. This constitutes a Russian ideal would probably be a catastrophe for the nation.

Showing his corporate past, the former president persists to treat the war as a mere land disagreement, as if ceding Russia a section of Ukraine's land will appease the president. Yet, Putin's war is not merely about controlling a destroyed area of economically weakened land in the Donbas region. Rather, it is about the nation's democratic governance – and Putin's obvious desire to destroy it so it stops functions as an enticing model for the Russian people of the democratic government that his deepening dictatorship denies them.

Border Concessions

While keeping in position the already divided oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the initiative would compel Ukraine to give up the whole this eastern territory. Beyond favoring Russia with territory that its troops have been unsuccessful to seize in more than a ten years of warfare, this concession would leave Ukraine's defenses critically weakened.

This region is the place of Ukraine's highly-touted "fortress belt", the fortified defensive positions that represent a key barrier to invading forces. The proposal would have the Ukrainian military leave these fortifications, giving Russian forces a unobstructed path to Kyiv in case he eventually decide to resume the war.

Defense Reductions

Then, in a move that would enable renewed fighting easier for the Russian military, the plan would mandate Ukraine to reduce the numbers of its troops from their present large number soldiers to a cap of six hundred thousand. Notably, Trump's plan sets no such limits on the invading army.

In what appears as a accommodation to Russia's campaign to depict the nation's chosen by the people government as Nazis, the proposal asserts: "All extremist belief system and actions must be rejected and prohibited." As if to highlight this aspect, it requires that "The nation will hold elections in three months" of a peace deal. Meanwhile, Trump imposes no condition that the Russian leader endanger his authoritarian rule by holding votes in his own country.

Protection Assurances

To be sure, the plan includes Russia pledge not to "invade other states" and to "establish in law its position of peaceful relations towards the EU and the Ukrainian people". But considering that Putin has violated similar accords in the past – for example the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which Russia committed to recognize Ukraine's sovereignty in return for surrendering its former Soviet nuclear arsenal, and the Minsk accords, in which Moscow committed to a halt in fighting and a restoration of occupied areas in the Donbas to Ukrainian control – why should the international community have confidence in Putin this time?

That is why the Ukrainian government has been so adamant on external protection assurances. Although the proposal promises a "strong joint military response" if the Russian Federation resume its military campaign, and provides that "The nation will receive dependable defense commitments", the particulars include unclear to alarming. The proposal would not just deny Ukraine alliance membership but also prohibit member states from stationing military personnel on Ukrainian territory, thus preventing the peacekeeping contingent, likely headed by European powers, on which Ukraine had been relying to deter Russia from rebuilding his diminished troops, re-equipping, and resuming aggression.

World Response

An additional parallel deal reportedly would provide the nation with a similar to NATO defense commitment, in which any future "significant, intentional, and sustained aggression" by Russia on Ukraine "would be considered as an assault jeopardizing the peace and security of the transatlantic community." This indicates a defense action. Yet in contrast to a capable Ukrainian military – the nation's best deterrent against renewed hostilities – the effectiveness of the supplementary deal would hinge on the willingness of Nato leaders, including the US administration, to react militarily to Putin's aggression, a response they have {not