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Initially, Trump gave the impression to embrace a resolute approach regarding Ukraine. Following making warnings of "significant repercussions" during the summer if Vladimir Putin carried on obstructing truce negotiations, the former president finally enacted considerable penalties on Russia's biggest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft. This action substantially hindered Putin's ability to finance his war effort in Ukraine.

However, with his newly presented detailed peace plan for the conflict, which was developed by US and Russian representatives without Ukrainian or European involvement, Trump has seemingly gone back to his favorable to Russia stance.

Favoring Military Action

The former president's plan would effectively reward Putin for attacking Ukraine while putting Ukraine's democracy in jeopardy. Despite ringing proclamations that "The nation's independence will be upheld", significant aspects of the proposal effectively weaken that essential sovereignty. This constitutes a Moscow's wish would likely be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Reflecting his real-estate background, the former president persists to treat the war as a simple territorial dispute, as if ceding Putin a section of Ukraine's soil will please the ruler. Yet, Russia's invasion is not merely about occupying a charred region of industrial-devastated area in the Donbas region. Rather, it is about the nation's democratic governance – and Putin's apparent desire to eliminate it so it ceases to acts as an attractive model for the Russia's population of the accountable government that Putin's deepening authoritarian rule denies them.

Border Concessions

Although keeping in position the presently divided Ukrainian provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the plan would require the nation to surrender the whole Donetsk province. In addition to favoring Russia with area that its military have been failed to occupy in over a ten years of warfare, this concession would render Ukraine's defensive positions dangerously compromised.

The area is the place of Ukraine's much-vaunted "defensive line", the fortified military defenses that constitute a critical impediment to Russian advances. The proposal would have the Ukrainian military surrender these positions, leaving Putin a open path to Kyiv if he later opt to restart the war.

Defense Reductions

Additionally, in a action that would make future conflict easier for the Russian military, Trump would require the nation to diminish the numbers of its military from their current large number soldiers to a limit of six hundred thousand. Importantly, Trump's plan sets no such limits on the invading army.

In what appears as a gesture to Putin's attempts to depict Ukraine's legitimate administration as extremists, the plan asserts: "All Nazi belief system and activities must be opposed and prohibited." Apparently to highlight this aspect, it demands that "The nation will hold democratic votes in this period" of a peace deal. Meanwhile, the proposal places no obligation that Putin risk his dictatorship by allowing democratic processes in Russia.

Security Guarantees

To be sure, the initiative makes Russia pledge not to "attack neighboring countries" and to "incorporate in legislation its position of non-violence towards Europe and Ukraine". Yet taking into account that Putin has breached similar agreements in the past – including the Budapest accord, in which Russia pledged to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for surrendering its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal, and the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, in which Russia committed to a halt in fighting and a handback of occupied land in the region to Ukrainian control – how should the international community have confidence in this commitment now?

This explains Ukraine has been so insistent on international security guarantees. Although the initiative warns of a "strong joint defense action" in case the Russian Federation renew its invasion, and states that "Ukraine will receive reliable protection assurances", the details range from unclear to troubling. The plan would not only prevent the nation alliance membership but also prohibit Nato members from stationing military personnel on Ukraine's soil, thus precluding the security presence, presumptively headed by the UK and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been depending to stop Russia from restoring his reduced forces, re-equipping, and attacking again.

International Reaction

An additional supplementary accord according to sources would provide Ukraine with a alliance-like protection assurance, in which any later "significant, intentional, and continuous military assault" by the Russian Federation on the country "shall be regarded as an attack jeopardizing the tranquility of the allied countries." That suggests a armed reaction. Yet unlike a powerful national defense – the nation's best defense against renewed invasion – the effectiveness of the side agreement would rely on the willingness of Nato leaders, including the US administration, to act militarily to Russia's hostilities, a response they have {not