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For a brief period, Donald Trump gave the impression to adopt a resolute approach regarding Ukraine. After delivering threats of "serious repercussions" during the summer in case Russia's president carried on obstructing peace discussions, the former president ultimately enacted considerable restrictions on Russia's biggest petroleum corporations, these major energy companies. This move seriously hindered Putin's ability to support his war effort in the region.

However, with his newly presented detailed peace proposal for Ukraine, that was created by both nations' diplomats without Ukrainian or EU involvement, he has apparently reverted to his Russia-friendly stance.

Favoring Military Action

The former president's proposal would essentially reward Putin for occupying a sovereign nation while putting Ukraine's democracy in danger. Despite bold statements that "The nation's autonomy will be upheld", much of the initiative actually weaken that very autonomy. Seen as a Russian ideal would certainly be a catastrophe for the nation.

Reflecting his business experience, Trump persists to treat the war as a simple land disagreement, as if handing Putin a section of Ukraine's soil will appease the ruler. But, Russia's invasion is not simply about dominating a destroyed region of economically weakened territory in eastern Ukraine. Instead, it's about Ukraine's democratic governance – and Putin's apparent desire to destroy it so it stops acts as an appealing example for the Russian people of the responsible governance that Putin's deepening autocracy denies them.

Territorial Surrenders

While freezing in status the currently divided oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, the initiative would compel the nation to surrender the entire Donetsk province. Aside from favoring Russia with territory that its troops have been unable to capture in exceeding a decade of fighting, this giveaway would render Ukraine's military defenses critically compromised.

This region is the site of Ukraine's much-vaunted "fortress belt", the entrenched defensive positions that are a critical obstacle to enemy progress. The proposal would have Ukraine leave these defenses, providing Putin a unobstructed route to Kyiv in case he subsequently decide to resume the conflict.

Defense Limitations

Additionally, in a step that would enable additional hostilities easier for Russia, the plan would force Ukraine to diminish the scale of its armed forces from their present large number troops to a maximum of 600,000. Significantly, the proposal places no equivalent constraints on Russia's military.

Seemingly as a gesture to Russia's campaign to characterize the nation's democratically elected government as Nazis, the plan asserts: "Every radical ideology and practices must be opposed and forbidden." As if to highlight this element, it requires that "Ukraine will hold elections in this period" of a truce. However, Trump places no condition that Putin endanger his regime by holding elections in his own country.

Defense Guarantees

To be sure, the plan has Russia pledge not to "enter neighboring countries" and to "establish in legislation its stance of peaceful relations towards European nations and the Ukrainian people". Yet considering that Putin has violated comparable treaties in the previous instances – for example the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which the Russian government promised to respect Ukraine's borders in exchange for relinquishing its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal, and the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, in which Russia promised to a ceasefire and a return of seized territory in the region to the government – why should anyone have confidence in Putin this time?

That is why Ukraine has been so insistent on external security guarantees. Although the proposal threatens a "immediate joint armed reaction" should the Russian Federation resume its aggression, and states that "The nation will receive dependable security guarantees", the specifics vary from vague to alarming. The plan would not only block Ukraine Nato membership but also prevent member states from deploying forces on Ukrainian territory, thus blocking the security presence, presumptively led by the UK and France, on which Ukraine had been depending to stop Russia from restoring his diminished troops, re-equipping, and reinvading.

Global Reaction

An additional parallel deal according to sources would grant Ukraine with a alliance-like security guarantee, in which any subsequent "major, planned, and ongoing military assault" by the Russian Federation on the country "shall be regarded as an act of war endangering the stability and safety of the allied countries." This implies a armed reaction. However unlike a strong national defense – Ukraine's most reliable deterrent against renewed Russian aggression – the effectiveness of the parallel accord would rely on the willingness of Nato leaders, like Trump, to respond militarily to Putin's aggression, a response they have {not