Trump's Ukraine Peace Initiative Represents a Benefit to Vladimir Putin

For a brief period, Donald Trump seemed to adopt a firm stance regarding Ukraine. After making threats of "significant ramifications" during the summer should Putin carried on hindering ceasefire discussions, Trump eventually introduced major sanctions on the Russian two largest petroleum corporations, Rosneft and Lukoil. This move seriously hindered Putin's capacity to finance his aggression in Ukraine.

However, via his recently unveiled comprehensive peace proposal for the conflict, which was created by US and Russian officials excluding Ukrainian or EU input, Trump has seemingly returned to his favorable to Russia stance.

Benefiting Invasion

Trump's plan would in practice benefit Putin for occupying Ukraine while leaving the country's political freedom in peril. Although ringing proclamations that "The nation's autonomy will be confirmed", significant aspects of the plan actually weaken that essential sovereignty. This constitutes a Moscow's wish would likely be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Reflecting his business background, the former president persists to view the war as a mere land disagreement, implying handing Putin a part of Ukrainian soil will appease the president. But, Putin's war is not merely about occupying a damaged region of industrial-devastated land in Ukraine's east. It is about the nation's democratic governance – and Putin's apparent intention to weaken it so it stops functions as an appealing standard for the Russian people of the responsible government that his deepening dictatorship withholds them.

Territorial Surrenders

While freezing in status the currently divided regions of these areas, Trump's initiative would force the nation to abandon the whole Donetsk region. Aside from rewarding Russia with territory that its military have been unsuccessful to occupy in over a ten years of fighting, this concession would leave Ukraine's defensive positions critically compromised.

The area is the location of the nation's well-known "fortress belt", the fortified military defenses that represent a critical obstacle to Russian advances. Trump would have the Ukrainian military abandon these defenses, providing Putin a clear route to Kyiv in case he eventually decide to renew the hostilities.

Defense Limitations

Furthermore, in a move that would facilitate additional hostilities simpler for Russia, Trump would force Ukraine to cut the scale of its armed forces from their present 800,000 to 850,000 troops to a cap of six hundred thousand. Notably, the initiative places no equivalent restrictions on Russian forces.

In what appears as a gesture to Putin's efforts to characterize the nation's legitimate government as extremists, the proposal states: "Every radical ideology and actions must be opposed and forbidden." As if to underscore this aspect, it insists that "The nation will hold democratic votes in three months" of a peace deal. Meanwhile, Trump imposes no condition that Putin risk his dictatorship by allowing democratic processes in Russia.

Protection Assurances

Admittedly, the proposal makes Russia commit not to "attack neighboring countries" and to "establish in legislation its policy of non-violence towards Europe and the Ukrainian people". But given that Putin has broken equivalent accords in the past – for example the 1994 agreement, in which Russia pledged to recognize the nation's borders in return for giving up its Soviet-era atomic arms, and the Minsk accords, in which Russia committed to a truce and a return of seized territory in the region to Kyiv – for what reason should we believe this commitment on this occasion?

This explains the Ukrainian government has been so determined on international defense commitments. While the proposal warns of a "strong coordinated armed reaction" if Russia resume its aggression, and includes that "Ukraine will receive reliable defense commitments", the details include fuzzy to alarming. The proposal would not just block Ukraine accession to NATO but also prohibit alliance nations from positioning forces on the nation's land, effectively precluding the peacekeeping contingent, presumptively headed by European powers, on which the Ukrainian government had been depending to stop Putin from restoring his reduced military, re-equipping, and reinvading.

Global Response

An additional supplementary accord apparently would provide Ukraine with a alliance-like defense commitment, in which any future "major, deliberate, and ongoing aggression" by Russia on the country "will be treated as an assault threatening the tranquility of the transatlantic community." That suggests a armed reaction. Yet in contrast to a powerful national defense – the nation's most reliable deterrent against future invasion – the success of the side agreement would depend on the willingness of alliance members, like the US administration, to react with force to Putin's hostilities, an action they have {not