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For a brief period, the former US president seemed to embrace a strong position regarding Ukraine. Following making warnings of "significant ramifications" during the summer should Russia's president persisted blocking truce talks, Trump ultimately imposed major sanctions on the Russian biggest energy firms, Rosneft and Lukoil. This action substantially affected the Russian leader's capability to finance his military invasion in the region.

Yet, with his latest comprehensive peace initiative for Ukraine, that was developed by US and Russian officials excluding Ukraine's or EU participation, he has clearly returned to his Russia-friendly position.

Rewarding Invasion

This proposal would in practice benefit Putin for invading a sovereign nation while leaving Ukraine's political freedom in danger. Although ringing statements that "Ukraine's sovereignty will be affirmed", large portions of the initiative in reality compromise that same autonomy. What represents a Kremlin dream would certainly be a catastrophe for the nation.

Showing his real-estate past, the former president continues to view the situation in Ukraine as a simple border issue, as if ceding Putin a part of Ukraine's land will appease the president. Yet, Russia's military campaign is not simply about occupying a damaged swath of economically weakened territory in Ukraine's east. Instead, it's about Ukraine's democracy – and Putin's obvious goal to eliminate it so it no longer functions as an attractive model for the Russian citizens of the responsible government that Putin's growing authoritarian rule denies them.

Territorial Surrenders

While maintaining in place the currently divided oblasts of these areas, the initiative would require Ukraine to give up the entire Donetsk province. Beyond benefiting Russia with area that its forces have been unable to seize in over a lengthy period of conflict, this surrender would render Ukraine's military defenses critically undermined.

Donetsk is the place of the nation's much-vaunted "stronghold system", the entrenched protective structures that represent a critical obstacle to Russian advances. Trump would have the Ukrainian military leave these defenses, giving Russian forces a clear way to the capital if he eventually opt to restart the conflict.

Armed Forces Restrictions

Additionally, in a action that would enable future conflict simpler for the Russian military, the plan would force the nation to cut the numbers of its troops from their existing approximately 800,000 troops to a limit of six hundred thousand. Importantly, the initiative sets no equivalent limits on the invading army.

In what appears as a accommodation to Russia's campaign to depict the nation's chosen by the people leadership as radicals, Trump's plan states: "Every extremist belief system and practices must be rejected and forbidden." As if to emphasize this point, it insists that "The nation will hold elections in this period" of a peace deal. Meanwhile, Trump places no obligation that Putin risk his authoritarian rule by holding votes in his own country.

Security Assurances

Admittedly, the proposal makes Russia pledge not to "enter neighboring countries" and to "establish in regulation its policy of peaceful relations towards European nations and the Ukrainian people". However taking into account that the Russian leadership has violated equivalent agreements in the history – for example the 1994 agreement, in which Russia committed to honor Ukraine's borders in exchange for relinquishing its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal, and the Minsk accords, in which Russia promised to a truce and a restoration of occupied territory in eastern Ukraine to Ukrainian control – for what reason should the international community believe this commitment this time?

That is why the Ukrainian government has been so insistent on international protection assurances. Although the proposal threatens a "immediate joint military response" should Russia restart its invasion, and includes that "The nation will receive reliable protection assurances", the specifics vary from fuzzy to troubling. The proposal would not only block Ukraine Nato membership but also preclude member states from stationing military personnel on Ukraine's soil, effectively precluding the reassurance force, presumptively headed by the UK and France, on which Ukraine had been counting to prevent Putin from rebuilding his weakened forces, restocking, and attacking again.

Global Concern

Another parallel deal reportedly would offer the nation with a Nato-style defense commitment, in which any subsequent "major, deliberate, and ongoing aggression" by Russia on Ukraine "will be treated as an act of war threatening the peace and security of the Western nations." This implies a defense action. However different from a strong national defense – the nation's best deterrent against renewed invasion – the effectiveness of the supplementary deal would depend on the willingness of Western powers, such as the US administration, to react through arms to Putin's hostilities, an action they have {not