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For a brief period, Donald Trump appeared to take a strong approach on the Ukrainian conflict. Following delivering statements of "serious ramifications" in August if Russia's president carried on blocking peace negotiations, he finally introduced considerable sanctions on Russia's primary energy firms, Rosneft and Lukoil. This move significantly hindered the Russian leader's capacity to support his military invasion in Ukraine.

Yet, via his latest 28-point peace proposal for the conflict, which was drafted by American and Russian representatives excluding Ukrainian or European involvement, the former president has seemingly returned to his favorable to Russia position.

Favoring Military Action

The former president's initiative would in practice reward Putin for occupying Ukraine while placing the country's democracy in jeopardy. Although bold proclamations that "The nation's autonomy will be confirmed", large portions of the proposal actually undermine that essential autonomy. What represents a Moscow's wish would probably be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Reflecting his business background, Trump seems to consider the situation in Ukraine as a simple border issue, like ceding Putin a portion of Ukrainian territory will appease the ruler. However, Russia's military campaign is not only about occupying a charred region of deindustrialized territory in eastern Ukraine. Rather, it is about Ukraine's democracy – and Putin's clear desire to weaken it so it no longer functions as an attractive model for the Russian people of the accountable leadership that Putin's deepening authoritarian rule withholds them.

Territorial Surrenders

While freezing in position the presently separated Ukrainian provinces of these areas, Trump's proposal would force Ukraine to give up the entire Donetsk province. Beyond benefiting Russia with territory that its forces have been unable to capture in more than a ten years of fighting, this concession would render Ukraine's defensive positions critically undermined.

The area is the place of the nation's highly-touted "fortress belt", the fortified military defenses that are a key barrier to Russian advances. Trump would have Ukraine abandon these positions, providing Russian forces a open route to the capital should he subsequently opt to renew the conflict.

Defense Restrictions

Then, in a action that would make additional conflict simpler for Russia, the plan would force the nation to reduce the scale of its military from their current approximately 800,000 personnel to a cap of 600,000. Importantly, the initiative sets no equivalent limits on Russia's military.

Seemingly as a gesture to Russia's campaign to depict the nation's legitimate government as Nazis, Trump's plan declares: "All Nazi belief system and practices must be opposed and forbidden." Apparently to highlight this aspect, it requires that "Ukraine will hold political contests in three months" of a truce. Meanwhile, Trump imposes no condition that Putin endanger his dictatorship by conducting votes in his own country.

Security Commitments

Certainly, the plan includes the Russian Federation promise not to "invade other states" and to "establish in legislation its position of non-violence towards the EU and Ukraine". But taking into account that Putin has breached equivalent accords in the history – including the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which Russia pledged to recognize the nation's territorial integrity in exchange for giving up its historical nuclear arsenal, and the previous peace deals, in which Russia promised to a ceasefire and a handback of captured land in eastern Ukraine to Kyiv – for what reason should the international community have confidence in this commitment now?

That is why Ukraine has been so insistent on external protection assurances. While the plan promises a "immediate unified military response" in case the Russian Federation restart its aggression, and states that "Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees", the details range from fuzzy to concerning. The plan would not just prevent Ukraine Nato membership but also prevent Nato members from deploying forces on the nation's land, effectively precluding the security presence, presumptively headed by Britain and France, on which Ukraine had been depending to stop Russia from restoring his reduced military, restocking, and reinvading.

International Response

Another supplementary accord according to sources would offer the nation with a alliance-like security guarantee, in which any future "serious, planned, and continuous military assault" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "would be considered as an act of war threatening the tranquility of the Western nations." This implies a armed reaction. However different from a capable Ukraine's armed forces – the nation's best protection against future hostilities – the credibility of the side agreement would hinge on the commitment of Western powers, like Trump, to react with force to Russia's hostilities, an action they have {not