Trump's Ukraine Peace Initiative Is Seen As a Benefit to Russia's Leader

Initially, the former US president gave the impression to embrace a strong stance on Ukraine. After delivering statements of "significant consequences" last August if Russia's president carried on hindering peace negotiations, he finally introduced considerable sanctions on the Russian biggest oil companies, these major energy companies. This action significantly hindered the Russian leader's ability to fund his military invasion in the region.

Yet, via his newly presented comprehensive peace initiative for Ukraine, which was created by US and Russian officials excluding Ukraine's or European participation, he has clearly gone back to his pro-Putin approach.

Rewarding Military Action

The former president's plan would essentially benefit the Russian leader for attacking a sovereign nation while placing Ukraine's democracy in peril. Although ringing declarations that "The nation's independence will be confirmed", large portions of the plan actually undermine that essential independence. This constitutes a Kremlin dream would certainly be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Showing his business past, the former president seems to treat the war as a simple land disagreement, as if ceding Russia a portion of Ukrainian territory will satisfy the ruler. However, Russia's military campaign is not merely about dominating a destroyed area of economically weakened area in the Donbas region. Rather, it is about the nation's political system – and the Russian leader's clear intention to weaken it so it ceases to acts as an enticing model for the Russia's population of the responsible government that his growing authoritarian rule denies them.

Border Concessions

Although keeping in place the presently divided Ukrainian provinces of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Trump's proposal would force the nation to surrender all of Donetsk province. Aside from rewarding Russia with territory that its military have been failed to seize in exceeding a lengthy period of fighting, this giveaway would render Ukrainian military defenses critically weakened.

Donetsk is the location of Ukraine's well-known "defensive line", the entrenched defensive positions that represent a critical impediment to invading forces. Trump would have the Ukrainian military abandon these defenses, providing Russian forces a unobstructed way to the capital if he subsequently choose to restart the hostilities.

Defense Reductions

Additionally, in a move that would enable future hostilities more feasible for the Russian military, the plan would force the nation to cut the size of its military from their existing 800,000 to 850,000 soldiers to a maximum of 600,000. Significantly, Trump's proposal imposes no similar limits on the invading army.

In what appears as a accommodation to Putin's attempts to portray Ukraine's democratically elected leadership as extremists, Trump's proposal declares: "Any Nazi ideology and practices must be rejected and forbidden." Seemingly to highlight this element, it demands that "The nation will hold democratic votes in 100 days" of a truce. At the same time, the proposal imposes no obligation that Putin risk his regime by allowing democratic processes in Russia.

Security Guarantees

Certainly, the initiative has the Russian Federation pledge not to "enter bordering nations" and to "incorporate in law its stance of non-aggression towards Europe and Ukraine". However given that the Russian leadership has violated equivalent accords in the history – for example the 1994 agreement, in which Russia pledged to honor Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for surrendering its Soviet-era nuclear weapons, and the Minsk accords, in which Moscow promised to a ceasefire and a return of seized territory in the Donbas to the government – why should anyone have confidence in this commitment on this occasion?

For this reason Ukraine has been so determined on external protection assurances. Although the initiative threatens a "immediate joint armed reaction" if the Russian Federation renew its aggression, and provides that "Ukraine will receive dependable security guarantees", the specifics vary from fuzzy to troubling. The initiative would not only deny the nation Nato membership but also prohibit Nato members from positioning troops on Ukrainian territory, thus precluding the reassurance force, likely headed by Britain and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been relying to deter Putin from rebuilding his weakened military, rearming, and reinvading.

Global Response

Another side agreement according to sources would provide Ukraine with a similar to NATO defense commitment, in which any later "serious, deliberate, and continuous military assault" by Russia on Ukraine "would be considered as an act of war jeopardizing the peace and security of the Western nations." This implies a defense action. But in contrast to a powerful Ukrainian military – Ukraine's best protection against additional hostilities – the credibility of the side agreement would hinge on the dedication of Western powers, like the US administration, to act through arms to Putin's hostilities, something they have {not