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At first, the former US president seemed to adopt a firm position on Ukraine. After making threats of "significant ramifications" in August if Vladimir Putin persisted hindering truce negotiations, the former president finally imposed substantial restrictions on the Russian primary oil companies, these major energy companies. This action seriously hindered the Russian leader's capability to finance his war effort in Ukraine.

However, via his newly presented comprehensive peace proposal for Ukraine, which was created by US and Russian diplomats without Ukrainian or EU participation, Trump has apparently returned to his favorable to Russia position.

Benefiting Aggression

The former president's initiative would in practice reward the Russian leader for attacking Ukraine while leaving Ukraine's political freedom in peril. Despite bold declarations that "Ukraine's sovereignty will be upheld", significant aspects of the initiative effectively compromise that very autonomy. Seen as a Kremlin dream would likely be a catastrophe for the nation.

Showing his corporate background, Trump continues to treat the situation in Ukraine as a simple territorial dispute, implying ceding Putin a section of Ukrainian land will satisfy the ruler. But, Russia's military campaign is not simply about dominating a destroyed area of industrial-devastated land in eastern Ukraine. Instead, it's about the nation's democratic governance – and Putin's clear desire to eliminate it so it stops acts as an enticing model for the Russia's population of the democratic governance that Putin's deepening autocracy denies them.

Land Concessions

While keeping in place the currently split oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Trump's initiative would require the nation to give up the whole this eastern territory. Beyond benefiting the Russian Federation with territory that its troops have been unable to occupy in exceeding a ten years of fighting, this surrender would render Ukrainian defenses dangerously weakened.

Donetsk is the location of Ukraine's well-known "defensive line", the well-established military defenses that are a key barrier to enemy progress. The proposal would have the Ukrainian military abandon these positions, giving Putin a clear route to the capital if he subsequently decide to resume the conflict.

Defense Limitations

Additionally, in a step that would facilitate future conflict more feasible for the Russian military, the plan would require the nation to reduce the size of its troops from their current 800,000 to 850,000 soldiers to a cap of six hundred thousand. Significantly, the initiative sets no similar limits on Russian forces.

Seemingly as a concession to Russia's attempts to depict Ukraine's legitimate administration as extremists, the plan declares: "Any radical belief system and actions must be condemned and forbidden." Seemingly to emphasize this element, it insists that "The nation will hold political contests in this period" of a ceasefire agreement. However, the proposal places no condition that the Russian leader endanger his authoritarian rule by allowing votes in his own country.

Defense Guarantees

Certainly, the initiative makes the Russian Federation pledge not to "attack bordering nations" and to "incorporate in law its stance of non-aggression towards European nations and Ukraine". But given that Putin has breached similar treaties in the previous instances – for example the 1994 agreement, in which the Russian government pledged to honor the nation's territorial integrity in exchange for surrendering its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal, and the previous peace deals, in which Russia promised to a halt in fighting and a return of seized areas in eastern Ukraine to the government – how should we trust this commitment this time?

That is why the Ukrainian government has been so adamant on international protection assurances. While the plan threatens a "decisive unified defense action" if the Russian Federation renew its aggression, and states that "The nation will receive strong protection assurances", the details range from fuzzy to alarming. The plan would not just block the nation Nato membership but also prevent alliance nations from stationing military personnel on Ukraine's soil, thereby preventing the peacekeeping contingent, likely led by European powers, on which the Ukrainian government had been relying to deter Russia from rebuilding his weakened forces, rearming, and attacking again.

World Concern

Another supplementary accord reportedly would grant Ukraine with a Nato-style defense commitment, in which any later "major, intentional, and sustained military assault" by the Russian Federation on the country "would be considered as an act of war endangering the tranquility of the Western nations." That suggests a armed reaction. Yet different from a strong Ukraine's armed forces – the nation's primary protection against renewed hostilities – the effectiveness of the parallel accord would depend on the commitment of Nato leaders, including Trump, to react militarily to Russia's aggression, a response they have {not