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For a brief period, Donald Trump appeared to adopt a strong position on Ukraine. Following making threats of "significant ramifications" during the summer should Vladimir Putin carried on obstructing truce discussions, Trump eventually imposed substantial sanctions on the Russian biggest petroleum corporations, Rosneft and Lukoil. This move substantially impacted Putin's capability to support his aggression in the region.

However, with his newly presented detailed peace proposal for the conflict, that was created by US and Russian representatives without Ukrainian or EU participation, the former president has clearly gone back to his favorable to Russia position.

Favoring Invasion

This plan would effectively benefit the Russian leader for attacking Ukraine while putting the country's democratic system in jeopardy. Although bold declarations that "Ukraine's sovereignty will be confirmed", much of the plan effectively undermine that essential sovereignty. This constitutes a Russian ideal would probably be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Showing his business experience, the former president seems to consider the situation in Ukraine as a simple land disagreement, as if giving Russia a section of Ukrainian territory will please the leader. However, Russia's military campaign is not merely about controlling a charred swath of economically weakened territory in the Donbas region. Rather, it is about the nation's democracy – and Putin's apparent intention to weaken it so it stops acts as an appealing example for the Russian citizens of the accountable leadership that his deepening autocracy withholds them.

Border Giveaways

Although maintaining in place the presently split oblasts of these areas, the plan would force Ukraine to give up the entire Donetsk province. Beyond benefiting Russia with territory that its troops have been unable to occupy in exceeding a lengthy period of conflict, this concession would make Ukrainian defensive positions dangerously compromised.

This region is the place of the nation's well-known "fortress belt", the well-established military defenses that are a key barrier to enemy progress. The proposal would have Ukraine leave these fortifications, leaving Putin a open route to Kyiv should he subsequently choose to restart the conflict.

Military Restrictions

Then, in a move that would enable additional hostilities easier for the Russian military, Trump would require Ukraine to reduce the scale of its military from their existing approximately 800,000 personnel to a maximum of this lower number. Significantly, Trump's plan places no such constraints on Russia's military.

Apparently as a accommodation to Putin's campaign to depict Ukraine's legitimate administration as extremists, the proposal asserts: "All radical belief system and practices must be condemned and prohibited." As if to highlight this point, it insists that "The nation will hold elections in three months" of a peace deal. Meanwhile, Trump imposes no obligation that Putin endanger his dictatorship by conducting votes in Russia.

Defense Guarantees

Certainly, the proposal makes the Russian Federation pledge not to "invade other states" and to "incorporate in law its policy of non-violence towards Europe and Ukraine". However given that the Russian leadership has breached similar treaties in the previous instances – for example the Budapest accord, in which Russia pledged to recognize Ukraine's sovereignty in return for relinquishing its former Soviet atomic arms, and the Minsk accords, in which Russia promised to a truce and a handback of seized territory in the Donbas to the government – how should the international community have confidence in this commitment now?

This explains Ukraine has been so adamant on external protection assurances. While the initiative promises a "immediate joint defense action" in case the Russian Federation restart its invasion, and provides that "Ukraine will receive dependable security guarantees", the specifics vary from fuzzy to concerning. The initiative would not just deny Ukraine accession to NATO but also preclude member states from positioning troops on Ukrainian territory, thus blocking the reassurance force, reportedly commanded by Britain and France, on which Ukraine had been depending to prevent Russia from rebuilding his reduced forces, re-equipping, and reinvading.

International Response

An additional side agreement apparently would offer the nation with a Nato-style security guarantee, in which any subsequent "serious, planned, and continuous military assault" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "shall be regarded as an act of war endangering the stability and safety of the transatlantic community." That suggests a military response. However different from a capable Ukrainian military – the nation's most reliable protection against additional invasion – the credibility of the supplementary deal would hinge on the commitment of alliance members, like Trump, to react militarily to Russia's attacks, something they have {not