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Initially, Donald Trump gave the impression to embrace a firm position on Ukraine. After delivering statements of "severe ramifications" in August in case Russia's president carried on obstructing truce discussions, the former president ultimately imposed considerable restrictions on Russia's biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. This decision substantially affected Putin's ability to support his aggression in Ukraine.

Yet, through his newly presented comprehensive peace proposal for Ukraine, which was developed by US and Russian representatives excluding Ukrainian or EU involvement, the former president has clearly gone back to his favorable to Russia stance.

Favoring Military Action

This initiative would effectively benefit Putin for invading Ukraine while leaving the country's political freedom in peril. Despite ringing statements that "The nation's autonomy will be affirmed", significant aspects of the proposal actually undermine that same sovereignty. This constitutes a Moscow's wish would certainly be a catastrophe for the nation.

Reflecting his business experience, the former president persists to treat the situation in Ukraine as a simple border issue, as if ceding Russia a section of Ukraine's land will appease the ruler. However, Putin's military campaign is not merely about dominating a destroyed region of deindustrialized area in Ukraine's east. Instead, it's about Ukraine's democratic governance – and the Russian leader's apparent goal to eliminate it so it no longer functions as an enticing standard for the Russian citizens of the responsible leadership that Putin's increasing dictatorship denies them.

Territorial Giveaways

While keeping in position the already divided Ukrainian provinces of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Trump's plan would compel Ukraine to abandon all of this eastern territory. In addition to favoring Russia with territory that its military have been failed to occupy in more than a decade of warfare, this surrender would make Ukraine's defenses critically weakened.

Donetsk is the place of the nation's well-known "defensive line", the well-established military defenses that are a critical barrier to enemy progress. Trump would have the Ukrainian military abandon these fortifications, giving Putin a unobstructed way to Kyiv if he eventually opt to renew the hostilities.

Defense Reductions

Additionally, in a step that would make renewed conflict simpler for the Russian military, the plan would force the nation to diminish the numbers of its military from their existing 800,000 to 850,000 troops to a maximum of 600,000. Importantly, Trump's plan imposes no such limits on Russian forces.

In what appears as a accommodation to Russia's campaign to depict Ukraine's chosen by the people government as radicals, the proposal declares: "All radical belief system and actions must be opposed and prohibited." As if to emphasize this aspect, it demands that "Ukraine will hold political contests in 100 days" of a ceasefire agreement. At the same time, the proposal imposes no condition that the Russian leader risk his dictatorship by holding elections in Russia.

Protection Assurances

Admittedly, the plan includes the Russian Federation promise not to "enter other states" and to "establish in regulation its position of non-aggression towards the EU and the Ukrainian people". However considering that the Russian leadership has violated similar treaties in the past – including the Budapest accord, in which the Russian government committed to recognize Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for surrendering its Soviet-era nuclear weapons, and the Minsk accords, in which Moscow agreed to a ceasefire and a return of seized areas in the region to the government – why should the international community trust Russia on this occasion?

This explains Ukraine has been so determined on western protection assurances. Although the plan warns of a "strong unified military response" in case the Russian Federation resume its military campaign, and provides that "The nation will receive dependable security guarantees", the particulars include vague to alarming. The plan would not just block the nation accession to NATO but also prohibit member states from positioning military personnel on Ukrainian territory, thereby preventing the reassurance force, likely led by the UK and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been relying to deter Russia from rebuilding his diminished troops, re-equipping, and resuming aggression.

International Response

Another supplementary accord according to sources would offer Ukraine with a alliance-like defense commitment, in which any future "serious, intentional, and ongoing aggression" by the Russian Federation on the country "shall be regarded as an attack endangering the stability and safety of the allied countries." That suggests a military response. But in contrast to a powerful Ukraine's armed forces – the nation's primary protection against future hostilities – the success of the parallel accord would rely on the willingness of Nato leaders, like Trump, to react militarily to Putin's hostilities, a response they have {not