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For a brief period, Trump appeared to adopt a firm approach regarding Ukraine. Following issuing warnings of "severe ramifications" last August if Vladimir Putin continued hindering truce negotiations, Trump ultimately imposed considerable restrictions on the Russian biggest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft. This decision significantly affected Putin's capacity to finance his aggression in Ukraine.

But, through his recently unveiled comprehensive peace initiative for the conflict, that was drafted by US and Russian representatives excluding Ukraine's or EU participation, the former president has clearly gone back to his favorable to Russia approach.

Benefiting Invasion

The former president's proposal would essentially reward the Russian leader for invading a sovereign nation while putting Ukraine's democratic system in jeopardy. Although bold proclamations that "Ukraine's independence will be confirmed", significant aspects of the plan effectively weaken that same autonomy. Seen as a Russian ideal would certainly be a catastrophe for the nation.

Demonstrating his business experience, Trump continues to treat the situation in Ukraine as a basic land disagreement, like giving Russia a part of Ukrainian land will appease the president. But, Putin's war is not only about dominating a charred area of deindustrialized territory in Ukraine's east. Rather, it is about the nation's democratic governance – and the Russian leader's apparent goal to weaken it so it ceases to serves as an enticing model for the Russian people of the democratic government that Putin's growing autocracy prevents them.

Land Giveaways

Although maintaining in status the currently separated Ukrainian provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the initiative would require Ukraine to surrender the entire Donetsk region. In addition to favoring Russia with territory that its military have been unable to occupy in over a ten years of warfare, this surrender would make Ukraine's military defenses critically undermined.

The area is the place of Ukraine's much-vaunted "fortress belt", the fortified defensive positions that are a essential impediment to enemy progress. Trump would have Ukraine leave these defenses, giving Russian forces a open path to the capital in case he subsequently choose to resume the conflict.

Military Restrictions

Additionally, in a step that would make additional fighting more feasible for Russia, Trump would force Ukraine to reduce the numbers of its troops from their present 800,000 to 850,000 troops to a maximum of six hundred thousand. Significantly, the proposal places no similar restrictions on Russian forces.

Seemingly as a accommodation to Putin's attempts to depict the nation's democratically elected administration as radicals, Trump's proposal states: "All radical belief system and actions must be rejected and prohibited." As if to emphasize this aspect, it requires that "Ukraine will hold elections in this period" of a ceasefire agreement. At the same time, Trump imposes no requirement that the Russian leader risk his authoritarian rule by holding elections in Russia.

Protection Guarantees

To be sure, the proposal has Russia pledge not to "attack bordering nations" and to "enshrine in regulation its stance of peaceful relations towards European nations and Ukraine". Yet given that the Russian leadership has broken comparable agreements in the previous instances – such as the 1994 agreement, in which the Russian government committed to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for relinquishing its Soviet-era atomic arms, and the previous peace deals, in which Russia committed to a ceasefire and a handback of seized areas in eastern Ukraine to the government – for what reason should we trust this commitment this time?

For this reason Ukraine has been so insistent on external security guarantees. While the initiative warns of a "immediate unified armed reaction" should Russia resume its aggression, and states that "The nation will receive strong security guarantees", the particulars include vague to alarming. The proposal would not only prevent Ukraine accession to NATO but also prohibit alliance nations from positioning troops on the nation's land, thus blocking the peacekeeping contingent, presumptively commanded by the UK and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been relying to deter Putin from restoring his diminished forces, re-equipping, and reinvading.

International Concern

A separate supplementary accord apparently would provide Ukraine with a similar to NATO security guarantee, in which any later "serious, planned, and sustained military assault" by the Russian Federation on Ukraine "will be treated as an assault threatening the tranquility of the transatlantic community." This implies a defense action. But unlike a capable Ukrainian military – Ukraine's best protection against future invasion – the success of the supplementary deal would rely on the willingness of Western powers, including Trump, to act with force to Russia's attacks, something they have {not