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At first, the former US president gave the impression to adopt a strong position concerning the Ukrainian conflict. After issuing statements of "significant repercussions" during the summer should Putin carried on blocking peace negotiations, he finally enacted considerable restrictions on Russia's biggest energy firms, these major energy companies. This action seriously affected the Russian leader's ability to finance his aggression in the region.

However, via his latest comprehensive peace initiative for the conflict, reportedly drafted by US and Russian officials excluding Ukrainian or EU input, the former president has seemingly gone back to his Russia-friendly position.

Rewarding Invasion

This initiative would essentially benefit Putin for attacking a sovereign nation while leaving the country's political freedom in jeopardy. Despite ringing proclamations that "The nation's autonomy will be upheld", much of the proposal effectively compromise that same autonomy. This constitutes a Moscow's wish would certainly be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Demonstrating his business past, the former president seems to treat the situation in Ukraine as a mere border issue, as if giving Russia a section of Ukrainian land will please the ruler. However, Russia's war is not simply about controlling a damaged region of industrial-devastated land in the Donbas region. It is about the nation's democracy – and the Russian leader's obvious intention to eliminate it so it ceases to serves as an attractive standard for the Russian people of the democratic leadership that Putin's growing autocracy prevents them.

Land Surrenders

While keeping in position the already separated oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the proposal would require Ukraine to surrender the whole Donetsk region. Beyond rewarding the Russian Federation with area that its military have been unable to occupy in exceeding a lengthy period of warfare, this surrender would make Ukrainian defensive positions dangerously undermined.

Donetsk is the place of the nation's well-known "stronghold system", the fortified military defenses that represent a critical impediment to Russian advances. Trump would have the Ukrainian military surrender these fortifications, providing Putin a open way to Kyiv in case he eventually decide to resume the conflict.

Armed Forces Limitations

Furthermore, in a step that would make renewed hostilities simpler for the Russian military, Trump would force Ukraine to cut the size of its military from their current large number soldiers to a cap of this lower number. Importantly, Trump's initiative imposes no equivalent restrictions on Russian forces.

Seemingly as a concession to Russia's efforts to characterize Ukraine's legitimate government as extremists, the plan states: "All Nazi belief system and actions must be rejected and banned." Apparently to highlight this element, it requires that "The nation will hold elections in this period" of a ceasefire agreement. At the same time, Trump places no condition that Putin jeopardize his authoritarian rule by holding elections in his own country.

Security Guarantees

Certainly, the initiative makes Russia pledge not to "invade bordering nations" and to "establish in law its position of non-violence towards the EU and the Ukrainian people". Yet taking into account that the Russian leadership has broken similar agreements in the history – for example the 1994 agreement, in which Russia promised to recognize Ukraine's sovereignty in return for giving up its historical nuclear arsenal, and the Minsk accords, in which Moscow agreed to a halt in fighting and a restoration of captured land in eastern Ukraine to the government – how should we believe this commitment this time?

This explains the Ukrainian government has been so insistent on western defense commitments. While the plan promises a "decisive unified armed reaction" in case Russia restart its invasion, and includes that "Ukraine will receive reliable protection assurances", the details include vague to concerning. The initiative would not only prevent the nation alliance membership but also prohibit alliance nations from positioning forces on Ukrainian territory, effectively precluding the security presence, presumptively headed by European powers, on which the Ukrainian government had been counting to deter Putin from restoring his reduced troops, restocking, and resuming aggression.

Global Response

An additional supplementary accord reportedly would offer the nation with a alliance-like defense commitment, in which any later "major, intentional, and sustained military assault" by the Russian Federation on the country "would be considered as an act of war threatening the stability and safety of the transatlantic community." This indicates a defense action. But in contrast to a capable national defense – Ukraine's most reliable deterrent against renewed hostilities – the effectiveness of the side agreement would hinge on the commitment of Nato leaders, such as Trump, to react with force to Putin's hostilities, something they have {not