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For a brief period, the former US president appeared to adopt a firm approach on Ukraine. After issuing warnings of "serious ramifications" in August should Vladimir Putin continued obstructing truce talks, the former president ultimately imposed substantial restrictions on Russia's two largest petroleum corporations, Lukoil and Rosneft. This action substantially impacted the Russian leader's capacity to finance his aggression in the region.

However, via his newly presented detailed peace proposal for Ukraine, that was drafted by American and Russian officials excluding Ukraine's or EU involvement, he has seemingly reverted to his Russia-friendly stance.

Benefiting Military Action

The former president's proposal would effectively reward Putin for attacking a sovereign nation while putting Ukraine's democracy in peril. Although bold proclamations that "Ukraine's autonomy will be confirmed", much of the proposal effectively compromise that same sovereignty. What represents a Russian ideal would likely be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Showing his business background, Trump seems to view the situation in Ukraine as a mere territorial dispute, implying ceding Putin a section of Ukrainian territory will satisfy the ruler. But, Putin's war is not merely about occupying a charred region of industrial-devastated territory in eastern Ukraine. Instead, it's about the nation's political system – and the Russian leader's apparent intention to destroy it so it ceases to acts as an enticing standard for the Russian people of the responsible governance that Putin's increasing authoritarian rule prevents them.

Border Giveaways

Although keeping in place the presently divided oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Trump's initiative would require the nation to abandon all of Donetsk province. In addition to favoring Russia with area that its forces have been failed to seize in exceeding a ten years of conflict, this concession would render Ukrainian military defenses dangerously undermined.

The area is the place of the nation's highly-touted "fortress belt", the entrenched military defenses that constitute a key barrier to invading forces. Trump would have Ukraine leave these defenses, giving Russian forces a unobstructed way to Kyiv should he subsequently opt to resume the conflict.

Defense Limitations

Furthermore, in a move that would enable additional fighting more feasible for the Russian military, the plan would force the nation to reduce the scale of its troops from their existing approximately 800,000 soldiers to a maximum of six hundred thousand. Notably, the initiative sets no similar constraints on the invading army.

Apparently as a gesture to Putin's attempts to depict the nation's chosen by the people government as extremists, Trump's plan declares: "Every Nazi belief system and practices must be condemned and banned." Apparently to emphasize this aspect, it demands that "Ukraine will hold political contests in three months" of a truce. However, Trump imposes no requirement that the Russian leader endanger his dictatorship by allowing democratic processes in his own country.

Security Assurances

To be sure, the proposal makes Russia pledge not to "attack neighboring countries" and to "incorporate in law its policy of non-aggression towards European nations and the Ukrainian people". Yet taking into account that Putin has broken equivalent treaties in the past – for example the Budapest accord, in which Russia pledged to honor Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for surrendering its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal, and the Minsk accords, in which Moscow agreed to a halt in fighting and a handback of occupied land in the Donbas to Ukrainian control – how should we have confidence in Putin this time?

This explains the Ukrainian government has been so insistent on international defense commitments. Although the proposal warns of a "immediate joint armed reaction" in case Russia restart its aggression, and provides that "Ukraine will receive dependable protection assurances", the details include fuzzy to alarming. The initiative would not only prevent Ukraine alliance membership but also preclude alliance nations from stationing forces on the nation's land, effectively preventing the peacekeeping contingent, presumptively led by European powers, on which the Ukrainian government had been depending to stop Russia from replenishing his diminished forces, re-equipping, and resuming aggression.

Global Reaction

A separate parallel deal according to sources would offer the nation with a Nato-style protection assurance, in which any subsequent "significant, planned, and ongoing aggression" by the Russian Federation on the country "will be treated as an attack jeopardizing the tranquility of the allied countries." That suggests a armed reaction. Yet different from a capable Ukrainian military – the nation's most reliable deterrent against renewed hostilities – the effectiveness of the side agreement would depend on the dedication of Western powers, like the US administration, to respond with force to Putin's aggression, something they have {not