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For a brief period, the former US president seemed to adopt a resolute position on Ukraine. After making threats of "serious consequences" last August in case Putin persisted obstructing peace negotiations, he ultimately enacted considerable sanctions on the Russian primary oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft. This decision seriously impacted the Russian leader's capacity to support his aggression in the region.

Yet, with his latest 28-point peace plan for the conflict, which was drafted by American and Russian diplomats without Ukraine's or European input, he has apparently returned to his Russia-friendly position.

Rewarding Invasion

The former president's proposal would in practice reward Putin for invading Ukraine while placing the country's political freedom in jeopardy. Despite ringing declarations that "Ukraine's autonomy will be confirmed", significant aspects of the initiative in reality undermine that essential independence. This constitutes a Russian ideal would certainly be a disaster for Ukraine.

Showing his business background, Trump continues to consider the war as a basic border issue, as if ceding Putin a part of Ukraine's territory will appease the ruler. However, Putin's invasion is not simply about occupying a destroyed swath of industrial-devastated area in the Donbas region. Rather, it is about Ukraine's political system – and the Russian leader's obvious goal to weaken it so it no longer functions as an attractive model for the Russia's population of the responsible leadership that his increasing dictatorship denies them.

Border Concessions

Although maintaining in place the already separated regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Trump's plan would force Ukraine to give up all of this eastern territory. Aside from benefiting the Russian Federation with area that its forces have been failed to capture in over a ten years of fighting, this giveaway would render Ukraine's defenses dangerously compromised.

The area is the place of the nation's well-known "stronghold system", the entrenched military defenses that represent a critical impediment to Russian advances. Trump would have Ukraine leave these defenses, giving Putin a unobstructed path to the capital if he later choose to renew the hostilities.

Military Limitations

Then, in a step that would make renewed fighting easier for the Russian military, the plan would mandate the nation to diminish the scale of its troops from their present approximately 800,000 soldiers to a limit of six hundred thousand. Significantly, Trump's initiative imposes no similar restrictions on the invading army.

In what appears as a gesture to Putin's campaign to characterize Ukraine's democratically elected leadership as extremists, Trump's proposal states: "Every extremist doctrine and practices must be condemned and banned." Apparently to highlight this point, it requires that "Ukraine will hold political contests in 100 days" of a peace deal. At the same time, Trump places no requirement that Putin risk his authoritarian rule by holding votes in his own country.

Security Guarantees

To be sure, the proposal includes Russia commit not to "attack bordering nations" and to "incorporate in legislation its position of non-violence towards Europe and Ukraine". But considering that Putin has broken equivalent treaties in the past – including the Budapest accord, in which Russia pledged to honor the nation's sovereignty in return for relinquishing its historical nuclear weapons, and the Minsk accords, in which Moscow committed to a ceasefire and a restoration of captured land in the Donbas to Kyiv – for what reason should the international community have confidence in Russia this time?

For this reason Ukraine has been so adamant on western protection assurances. While the plan threatens a "decisive joint armed reaction" should Russia renew its military campaign, and provides that "Ukraine will receive strong protection assurances", the details range from vague to alarming. The initiative would not just deny the nation alliance membership but also preclude member states from positioning forces on Ukraine's soil, thereby precluding the peacekeeping contingent, reportedly led by European powers, on which Ukraine had been counting to prevent Russia from restoring his diminished military, re-equipping, and attacking again.

Global Response

A separate side agreement apparently would grant the nation with a similar to NATO defense commitment, in which any future "major, planned, and sustained armed attack" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "shall be regarded as an act of war endangering the tranquility of the Western nations." This indicates a defense action. Yet in contrast to a powerful Ukraine's armed forces – the nation's most reliable deterrent against renewed invasion – the effectiveness of the side agreement would hinge on the dedication of Nato leaders, like the US administration, to respond militarily to Russia's hostilities, something they have {not