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Initially, Trump gave the impression to take a strong position regarding Ukraine. Following issuing warnings of "serious ramifications" during the summer should Russia's president carried on hindering truce discussions, the former president finally enacted considerable restrictions on Russia's primary oil companies, these major energy companies. This decision seriously affected the Russian leader's capability to support his military invasion in the region.

However, through his latest detailed peace proposal for the conflict, that was created by both nations' diplomats excluding Ukrainian or EU involvement, Trump has apparently reverted to his pro-Putin stance.

Benefiting Invasion

This proposal would essentially reward the Russian leader for attacking a sovereign nation while leaving Ukraine's democracy in jeopardy. Although strong statements that "The nation's sovereignty will be affirmed", much of the plan effectively weaken that essential independence. What represents a Moscow's wish would likely be a disaster for Ukraine.

Showing his corporate background, the former president seems to consider the war as a mere border issue, as if giving Russia a portion of Ukrainian territory will satisfy the president. Yet, Russia's military campaign is not only about occupying a destroyed region of deindustrialized land in the Donbas region. Instead, it's about Ukraine's democratic governance – and the Russian leader's apparent intention to destroy it so it stops functions as an attractive model for the Russian citizens of the responsible leadership that his deepening dictatorship prevents them.

Land Giveaways

Although maintaining in place the presently separated oblasts of these areas, Trump's initiative would compel Ukraine to surrender the entire Donetsk region. Aside from favoring the Russian Federation with land that its forces have been unable to seize in exceeding a lengthy period of warfare, this giveaway would render Ukrainian defenses dangerously undermined.

The area is the site of the nation's highly-touted "fortress belt", the entrenched military defenses that constitute a key impediment to enemy progress. The proposal would have the Ukrainian military abandon these fortifications, leaving Russian forces a unobstructed way to Kyiv if he eventually choose to renew the conflict.

Armed Forces Reductions

Then, in a move that would facilitate additional fighting simpler for the Russian military, Trump would require Ukraine to cut the scale of its armed forces from their current 800,000 to 850,000 troops to a limit of this lower number. Importantly, the initiative imposes no equivalent limits on the invading army.

In what appears as a concession to Russia's efforts to characterize Ukraine's democratically elected administration as Nazis, the plan states: "Every Nazi ideology and practices must be condemned and prohibited." Apparently to underscore this point, it requires that "Ukraine will hold democratic votes in three months" of a truce. However, the proposal imposes no condition that the Russian leader risk his authoritarian rule by holding elections in his own country.

Protection Assurances

Admittedly, the proposal makes the Russian Federation pledge not to "enter neighboring countries" and to "incorporate in regulation its stance of peaceful relations towards the EU and Ukraine". However taking into account that the Russian leadership has violated similar accords in the previous instances – for example the 1994 agreement, in which Russia promised to respect the nation's borders in return for relinquishing its Soviet-era atomic arms, and the previous peace deals, in which Russia committed to a ceasefire and a handback of captured areas in the region to Ukrainian control – how should we believe Putin now?

That is why the Ukrainian government has been so adamant on external protection assurances. Although the proposal threatens a "decisive coordinated military response" if the Russian Federation restart its aggression, and includes that "The nation will receive reliable protection assurances", the particulars include unclear to troubling. The plan would not only deny Ukraine Nato membership but also prohibit alliance nations from stationing troops on the nation's land, effectively precluding the security presence, presumptively led by European powers, on which the Ukrainian government had been relying to deter Putin from replenishing his reduced military, rearming, and resuming aggression.

International Response

Another supplementary accord reportedly would grant the nation with a alliance-like protection assurance, in which any subsequent "major, deliberate, and continuous armed attack" by the Russian Federation on the country "would be considered as an assault jeopardizing the peace and security of the allied countries." That suggests a defense action. However unlike a capable Ukrainian military – Ukraine's best defense against renewed hostilities – the success of the parallel accord would rely on the commitment of Nato leaders, like the US administration, to respond through arms to Russia's attacks, a response they have {not