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For a brief period, Trump appeared to embrace a firm approach regarding the Ukrainian conflict. Following issuing warnings of "serious repercussions" during the summer should Russia's president continued blocking truce talks, he eventually imposed major penalties on Russia's biggest petroleum corporations, Lukoil and Rosneft. This move significantly affected Putin's capacity to support his military invasion in Ukraine.

But, with his newly presented 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, that was created by US and Russian diplomats excluding Ukrainian or European involvement, Trump has apparently gone back to his favorable to Russia stance.

Benefiting Invasion

The former president's initiative would essentially reward Putin for invading a sovereign nation while putting Ukraine's political freedom in danger. Although bold proclamations that "The nation's sovereignty will be confirmed", significant aspects of the initiative actually undermine that same independence. Seen as a Moscow's wish would certainly be a disaster for Ukraine.

Showing his real-estate experience, Trump persists to consider the war as a mere land disagreement, implying ceding Putin a section of Ukrainian soil will satisfy the leader. However, Russia's war is not only about controlling a charred swath of industrial-devastated territory in eastern Ukraine. It is about the nation's democracy – and the Russian leader's clear desire to weaken it so it ceases to functions as an appealing standard for the Russia's population of the democratic governance that Putin's deepening autocracy denies them.

Land Giveaways

Although freezing in place the presently split regions of these areas, Trump's proposal would require the nation to give up the whole Donetsk region. Aside from favoring Russia with area that its military have been unsuccessful to seize in exceeding a decade of warfare, this concession would leave Ukrainian defenses dangerously undermined.

This region is the place of the nation's well-known "fortress belt", the entrenched military defenses that are a critical obstacle to Russian advances. The proposal would have the Ukrainian military surrender these fortifications, giving Putin a clear route to Kyiv in case he later choose to renew the conflict.

Armed Forces Reductions

Then, in a move that would enable additional fighting more feasible for the Russian military, Trump would mandate Ukraine to cut the size of its military from their existing approximately 800,000 soldiers to a limit of six hundred thousand. Notably, Trump's plan places no equivalent restrictions on Russian forces.

In what appears as a concession to Putin's attempts to portray the nation's legitimate leadership as extremists, Trump's plan asserts: "Any extremist belief system and activities must be condemned and prohibited." Seemingly to underscore this element, it requires that "The nation will hold democratic votes in three months" of a peace deal. At the same time, Trump imposes no requirement that the Russian leader endanger his authoritarian rule by holding votes in Russia.

Protection Assurances

Certainly, the proposal makes the Russian Federation promise not to "enter bordering nations" and to "enshrine in regulation its stance of non-aggression towards the EU and the Ukrainian people". Yet given that Putin has violated equivalent agreements in the past – including the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which Russia promised to honor Ukraine's sovereignty in return for relinquishing its former Soviet atomic arms, and the Minsk accords, in which Russia promised to a halt in fighting and a return of occupied land in the region to the government – for what reason should we believe this commitment now?

For this reason the Ukrainian government has been so determined on international protection assurances. While the initiative threatens a "immediate joint military response" should Russia restart its military campaign, and states that "The nation will receive dependable protection assurances", the specifics include unclear to concerning. The proposal would not only block the nation Nato membership but also prohibit Nato members from deploying military personnel on Ukraine's soil, effectively blocking the peacekeeping contingent, presumptively commanded by European powers, on which the Ukrainian government had been relying to deter Russia from rebuilding his weakened troops, re-equipping, and attacking again.

Global Response

A separate side agreement reportedly would grant Ukraine with a similar to NATO defense commitment, in which any future "significant, deliberate, and sustained armed attack" by the Russian Federation on the country "would be considered as an attack threatening the tranquility of the transatlantic community." This indicates a armed reaction. However in contrast to a powerful Ukraine's armed forces – the nation's primary deterrent against renewed Russian aggression – the success of the parallel accord would hinge on the willingness of alliance members, like Trump, to react with force to Russia's aggression, an action they have {not