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For a brief period, the former US president gave the impression to embrace a strong stance on Ukraine. After issuing statements of "serious repercussions" last August in case Vladimir Putin continued obstructing ceasefire negotiations, Trump eventually introduced substantial penalties on Russia's primary petroleum corporations, Rosneft and Lukoil. This move significantly impacted Putin's capability to fund his war effort in the region.

But, with his latest 28-point peace proposal for the conflict, reportedly created by American and Russian officials excluding Ukrainian or European participation, he has seemingly gone back to his favorable to Russia stance.

Rewarding Invasion

This initiative would essentially favor Putin for attacking a sovereign nation while placing the country's political freedom in jeopardy. Despite strong statements that "The nation's sovereignty will be upheld", significant aspects of the plan in reality compromise that very autonomy. This constitutes a Moscow's wish would probably be a catastrophe for the nation.

Showing his corporate background, Trump continues to treat the Ukrainian conflict as a basic border issue, like handing Putin a section of Ukrainian soil will satisfy the leader. But, Putin's war is not only about occupying a charred region of deindustrialized area in the Donbas region. Rather, it is about the nation's democracy – and Putin's clear goal to destroy it so it ceases to functions as an appealing standard for the Russian people of the accountable governance that his growing autocracy denies them.

Land Concessions

Although keeping in status the currently split oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Trump's plan would compel Ukraine to surrender the entire Donetsk province. Aside from benefiting Russia with land that its troops have been unable to seize in over a lengthy period of fighting, this surrender would make Ukrainian military defenses critically undermined.

The area is the place of Ukraine's well-known "defensive line", the entrenched military defenses that represent a essential obstacle to invading forces. Trump would have Ukraine abandon these positions, providing Russian forces a open route to Kyiv should he eventually choose to restart the hostilities.

Military Restrictions

Then, in a step that would enable additional fighting more feasible for Russia, the plan would mandate Ukraine to cut the numbers of its armed forces from their existing approximately 800,000 troops to a maximum of this lower number. Notably, Trump's initiative sets no similar constraints on the invading army.

Seemingly as a gesture to Putin's campaign to portray Ukraine's legitimate administration as extremists, Trump's proposal asserts: "All extremist doctrine and actions must be rejected and banned." Apparently to highlight this point, it insists that "The nation will hold democratic votes in 100 days" of a peace deal. At the same time, the proposal sets no condition that the Russian leader risk his dictatorship by holding elections in Russia.

Security Commitments

Certainly, the proposal has Russia commit not to "attack bordering nations" and to "establish in law its stance of non-violence towards Europe and Ukraine". Yet given that Putin has violated equivalent accords in the previous instances – including the Budapest accord, in which the Russian government promised to respect the nation's borders in exchange for relinquishing its former Soviet nuclear arsenal, and the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, in which Moscow committed to a halt in fighting and a restoration of seized land in eastern Ukraine to Kyiv – how should the international community have confidence in this commitment this time?

That is why the Ukrainian government has been so insistent on western defense commitments. Although the proposal threatens a "strong unified armed reaction" should the Russian Federation restart its aggression, and provides that "Ukraine will receive dependable defense commitments", the details include vague to concerning. The plan would not only prevent Ukraine alliance membership but also preclude Nato members from deploying troops on Ukrainian territory, thus precluding the peacekeeping contingent, likely commanded by European powers, on which Ukraine had been counting to deter Russia from replenishing his diminished military, rearming, and resuming aggression.

World Reaction

A separate parallel deal apparently would grant Ukraine with a Nato-style protection assurance, in which any later "major, planned, and sustained aggression" by Russia on the country "shall be regarded as an attack jeopardizing the stability and safety of the Western nations." That suggests a defense action. However in contrast to a strong Ukraine's armed forces – the nation's primary defense against future hostilities – the credibility of the supplementary deal would depend on the willingness of Nato leaders, like the US administration, to respond through arms to Russia's attacks, something they have {not