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At first, Donald Trump seemed to embrace a strong approach regarding Ukraine. After delivering threats of "significant consequences" last August if Putin carried on hindering ceasefire discussions, he ultimately imposed major penalties on the Russian two largest oil companies, these major energy companies. This move seriously affected the Russian leader's capability to finance his aggression in Ukraine.

Yet, via his newly presented 28-point peace proposal for Ukraine, which was drafted by US and Russian officials excluding Ukraine's or European input, Trump has apparently gone back to his Russia-friendly position.

Favoring Invasion

This plan would in practice reward the Russian leader for occupying a sovereign nation while leaving the country's democratic system in danger. Although strong declarations that "The nation's independence will be upheld", much of the plan in reality weaken that essential autonomy. This constitutes a Moscow's wish would certainly be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Demonstrating his business background, Trump persists to view the Ukrainian conflict as a simple border issue, implying ceding Russia a section of Ukraine's territory will appease the ruler. However, Russia's invasion is not merely about occupying a destroyed area of deindustrialized land in Ukraine's east. Instead, it's about the nation's democracy – and the Russian leader's apparent desire to weaken it so it stops acts as an attractive example for the Russian citizens of the democratic leadership that Putin's deepening autocracy denies them.

Border Giveaways

Although keeping in status the presently separated regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Trump's initiative would require Ukraine to surrender the whole this eastern territory. Aside from favoring Russia with land that its troops have been unsuccessful to seize in more than a ten years of conflict, this concession would leave Ukraine's military defenses dangerously weakened.

The area is the location of the nation's highly-touted "fortress belt", the entrenched military defenses that are a essential impediment to invading forces. Trump would have the Ukrainian military abandon these fortifications, leaving Russian forces a clear way to the capital in case he eventually decide to restart the conflict.

Armed Forces Reductions

Additionally, in a step that would facilitate additional fighting more feasible for Russia, the plan would mandate Ukraine to cut the size of its military from their current approximately 800,000 troops to a maximum of six hundred thousand. Notably, the proposal places no such limits on Russian forces.

Apparently as a gesture to Putin's attempts to depict the nation's legitimate government as Nazis, the proposal asserts: "Every extremist ideology and practices must be rejected and prohibited." Apparently to underscore this aspect, it insists that "The nation will hold elections in this period" of a truce. However, Trump imposes no obligation that Putin jeopardize his dictatorship by holding democratic processes in Russia.

Security Guarantees

Admittedly, the proposal has Russia pledge not to "attack bordering nations" and to "establish in regulation its policy of non-violence towards Europe and Ukraine". Yet taking into account that Putin has broken comparable agreements in the history – including the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which the Russian government committed to recognize Ukraine's sovereignty in return for relinquishing its former Soviet atomic arms, and the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, in which Moscow committed to a truce and a restoration of occupied land in the region to Kyiv – for what reason should we believe Putin now?

That is why the Ukrainian government has been so adamant on western security guarantees. Although the proposal threatens a "immediate coordinated defense action" in case Russia restart its aggression, and includes that "The nation will receive strong defense commitments", the specifics range from fuzzy to alarming. The plan would not only block Ukraine Nato membership but also prevent alliance nations from positioning forces on Ukraine's soil, effectively precluding the reassurance force, reportedly commanded by European powers, on which the Ukrainian government had been relying to prevent Russia from replenishing his reduced military, restocking, and reinvading.

World Reaction

A separate parallel deal according to sources would provide Ukraine with a Nato-style security guarantee, in which any subsequent "significant, deliberate, and sustained aggression" by Russia on Ukraine "will be treated as an assault jeopardizing the tranquility of the transatlantic community." This indicates a military response. But unlike a capable national defense – the nation's most reliable protection against renewed invasion – the effectiveness of the supplementary deal would hinge on the willingness of Western powers, like Trump, to act through arms to Russia's hostilities, an action they have {not