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Initially, the former US president gave the impression to adopt a strong stance on the Ukrainian conflict. After making warnings of "serious consequences" during the summer if Putin continued hindering ceasefire talks, he finally imposed considerable sanctions on Russia's biggest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft. This move substantially hindered the Russian leader's capability to fund his aggression in the region.

However, through his latest 28-point peace initiative for the conflict, which was created by both nations' diplomats excluding Ukrainian or European involvement, the former president has clearly reverted to his pro-Putin position.

Favoring Military Action

Trump's initiative would in practice benefit the Russian leader for attacking Ukraine while placing the country's democratic system in jeopardy. Despite bold proclamations that "Ukraine's autonomy will be affirmed", much of the plan effectively undermine that essential independence. What represents a Moscow's wish would likely be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Demonstrating his business background, Trump continues to treat the Ukrainian conflict as a mere border issue, like handing Putin a part of Ukrainian land will please the president. But, Putin's war is not only about controlling a damaged area of deindustrialized territory in the Donbas region. Rather, it is about Ukraine's democratic governance – and the Russian leader's obvious goal to eliminate it so it stops acts as an enticing standard for the Russia's population of the responsible government that his deepening autocracy prevents them.

Border Giveaways

Although freezing in position the presently split regions of these areas, the initiative would require Ukraine to give up the entire Donetsk region. Beyond favoring Russia with area that its forces have been failed to seize in over a lengthy period of warfare, this concession would leave Ukrainian military defenses critically undermined.

This region is the site of Ukraine's highly-touted "fortress belt", the entrenched military defenses that represent a key impediment to Russian advances. Trump would have Ukraine leave these fortifications, giving Putin a clear route to Kyiv in case he later decide to resume the conflict.

Defense Limitations

Furthermore, in a step that would facilitate future fighting easier for Russia, the plan would force Ukraine to diminish the numbers of its military from their existing approximately 800,000 troops to a limit of six hundred thousand. Notably, Trump's plan places no similar limits on the invading army.

Apparently as a concession to Russia's attempts to characterize the nation's democratically elected government as extremists, the plan declares: "All Nazi doctrine and practices must be condemned and forbidden." Seemingly to emphasize this element, it demands that "The nation will hold elections in three months" of a peace deal. Meanwhile, the proposal places no condition that the Russian leader endanger his regime by conducting democratic processes in his own country.

Defense Guarantees

Certainly, the initiative includes the Russian Federation commit not to "invade other states" and to "incorporate in legislation its stance of non-violence towards European nations and Ukraine". Yet taking into account that the Russian leadership has broken similar treaties in the past – for example the 1994 agreement, in which the Russian government pledged to respect Ukraine's borders in return for giving up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons, and the previous peace deals, in which Moscow promised to a truce and a handback of seized areas in the region to Kyiv – for what reason should anyone trust Putin this time?

That is why Ukraine has been so insistent on international defense commitments. While the initiative threatens a "decisive unified armed reaction" in case Russia resume its invasion, and provides that "Ukraine will receive reliable protection assurances", the specifics include fuzzy to concerning. The plan would not only deny Ukraine alliance membership but also preclude alliance nations from deploying troops on Ukraine's soil, effectively blocking the security presence, likely headed by the UK and France, on which Ukraine had been counting to prevent Putin from restoring his diminished troops, rearming, and reinvading.

World Response

Another parallel deal reportedly would grant Ukraine with a alliance-like defense commitment, in which any subsequent "serious, intentional, and continuous military assault" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "would be considered as an assault threatening the tranquility of the transatlantic community." This implies a armed reaction. However in contrast to a capable Ukraine's armed forces – Ukraine's most reliable deterrent against additional invasion – the credibility of the supplementary deal would hinge on the commitment of alliance members, including Trump, to react through arms to Russia's aggression, a response they have {not