Donald Trump's Ukraine Peace Plan Constitutes a Benefit to Vladimir Putin

For a brief period, Trump seemed to adopt a firm position on the Ukrainian conflict. After delivering warnings of "severe ramifications" last August if Russia's president carried on hindering peace discussions, Trump ultimately imposed substantial sanctions on Russia's biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. This action substantially impacted the Russian leader's ability to fund his military invasion in the region.

However, via his latest detailed peace plan for Ukraine, reportedly created by American and Russian officials excluding Ukrainian or EU participation, Trump has seemingly gone back to his Russia-friendly approach.

Rewarding Military Action

This plan would essentially reward the Russian leader for occupying Ukraine while putting the country's democratic system in jeopardy. Although ringing proclamations that "Ukraine's sovereignty will be confirmed", much of the plan in reality undermine that essential sovereignty. Seen as a Russian ideal would likely be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Showing his business past, Trump continues to consider the war as a mere land disagreement, like handing Russia a part of Ukrainian land will appease the leader. Yet, Russia's military campaign is not merely about controlling a charred area of deindustrialized land in the Donbas region. Instead, it's about the nation's political system – and the Russian leader's obvious goal to destroy it so it ceases to functions as an enticing standard for the Russia's population of the accountable governance that his increasing dictatorship denies them.

Border Giveaways

While maintaining in status the already split Ukrainian provinces of these areas, Trump's initiative would compel the nation to give up the whole this eastern territory. Aside from benefiting Russia with area that its military have been unsuccessful to occupy in more than a lengthy period of warfare, this concession would render Ukraine's defenses dangerously compromised.

Donetsk is the site of the nation's well-known "fortress belt", the well-established military defenses that represent a key obstacle to enemy progress. Trump would have Ukraine leave these fortifications, giving Putin a open path to Kyiv if he later opt to renew the war.

Armed Forces Reductions

Then, in a step that would facilitate future fighting easier for the Russian military, the plan would force Ukraine to reduce the numbers of its armed forces from their current approximately 800,000 personnel to a maximum of six hundred thousand. Importantly, the plan imposes no equivalent constraints on the invading army.

In what appears as a accommodation to Putin's efforts to portray the nation's democratically elected administration as radicals, the plan states: "Any extremist doctrine and activities must be condemned and forbidden." Seemingly to highlight this point, it insists that "Ukraine will hold elections in three months" of a truce. At the same time, Trump imposes no condition that the Russian leader jeopardize his authoritarian rule by holding votes in his own country.

Defense Commitments

Certainly, the initiative makes Russia commit not to "enter neighboring countries" and to "incorporate in regulation its stance of non-violence towards Europe and the Ukrainian people". But taking into account that Putin has broken similar accords in the history – such as the Budapest accord, in which Russia committed to recognize the nation's borders in exchange for surrendering its historical nuclear arsenal, and the previous peace deals, in which Russia promised to a halt in fighting and a return of occupied territory in the Donbas to Ukrainian control – for what reason should the international community have confidence in this commitment now?

For this reason Ukraine has been so insistent on external defense commitments. While the initiative threatens a "decisive joint armed reaction" should the Russian Federation renew its military campaign, and includes that "Ukraine will receive dependable protection assurances", the particulars include unclear to concerning. The initiative would not just prevent the nation alliance membership but also preclude Nato members from positioning forces on Ukrainian territory, thereby preventing the reassurance force, reportedly headed by European powers, on which Ukraine had been relying to prevent Putin from restoring his diminished forces, re-equipping, and resuming aggression.

International Response

Another side agreement apparently would provide the nation with a alliance-like security guarantee, in which any subsequent "major, intentional, and ongoing armed attack" by Russia on Ukraine "shall be regarded as an assault endangering the stability and safety of the allied countries." That suggests a defense action. But in contrast to a strong Ukrainian military – the nation's primary protection against renewed invasion – the effectiveness of the supplementary deal would rely on the willingness of Western powers, like the US administration, to act with force to Russia's hostilities, an action they have {not