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At first, the former US president gave the impression to adopt a strong approach regarding the Ukrainian conflict. Following issuing warnings of "significant repercussions" in August if Putin continued blocking peace talks, the former president eventually enacted substantial restrictions on the Russian two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. This decision seriously impacted Putin's capability to finance his military invasion in Ukraine.

Yet, through his latest comprehensive peace initiative for Ukraine, reportedly drafted by US and Russian representatives without Ukrainian or EU input, Trump has seemingly reverted to his favorable to Russia position.

Rewarding Military Action

This initiative would essentially benefit Putin for invading a sovereign nation while placing the country's democratic system in peril. Although bold proclamations that "The nation's sovereignty will be affirmed", large portions of the initiative in reality compromise that same sovereignty. What represents a Russian ideal would probably be a disaster for Ukraine.

Reflecting his corporate experience, Trump continues to consider the Ukrainian conflict as a simple land disagreement, like handing Putin a section of Ukrainian territory will please the ruler. However, Putin's military campaign is not only about controlling a damaged region of industrial-devastated territory in eastern Ukraine. Instead, it's about Ukraine's democratic governance – and Putin's obvious goal to destroy it so it stops functions as an attractive model for the Russia's population of the democratic governance that his deepening dictatorship prevents them.

Land Giveaways

Although keeping in status the presently split oblasts of these areas, the initiative would force Ukraine to abandon all of this eastern territory. Beyond rewarding the Russian Federation with territory that its forces have been failed to seize in exceeding a ten years of warfare, this giveaway would make Ukraine's defenses critically compromised.

The area is the location of the nation's highly-touted "fortress belt", the entrenched military defenses that constitute a key obstacle to invading forces. Trump would have Ukraine leave these fortifications, giving Putin a clear path to the capital should he later opt to renew the hostilities.

Defense Restrictions

Additionally, in a step that would make future fighting easier for the Russian military, Trump would force the nation to diminish the scale of its military from their current approximately 800,000 personnel to a maximum of six hundred thousand. Significantly, the plan sets no equivalent restrictions on the invading army.

Apparently as a gesture to Putin's attempts to depict the nation's democratically elected administration as radicals, Trump's proposal states: "Any Nazi doctrine and practices must be rejected and forbidden." Apparently to underscore this element, it requires that "Ukraine will hold democratic votes in this period" of a peace deal. Meanwhile, Trump sets no requirement that Putin risk his authoritarian rule by holding elections in his own country.

Security Guarantees

Certainly, the initiative makes Russia commit not to "attack other states" and to "establish in regulation its position of non-aggression towards the EU and the Ukrainian people". But given that Putin has breached equivalent accords in the history – such as the 1994 Budapest memorandum, in which the Russian government committed to recognize Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for relinquishing its historical nuclear weapons, and the Minsk accords, in which Russia agreed to a ceasefire and a handback of captured territory in the Donbas to the government – for what reason should we believe Putin now?

This explains Ukraine has been so insistent on international defense commitments. Although the initiative warns of a "decisive coordinated military response" in case Russia resume its aggression, and states that "The nation will receive reliable defense commitments", the particulars range from unclear to alarming. The initiative would not only block Ukraine alliance membership but also prevent alliance nations from positioning forces on Ukraine's soil, thereby preventing the peacekeeping contingent, reportedly commanded by Britain and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been depending to stop Putin from replenishing his diminished military, rearming, and reinvading.

World Concern

Another parallel deal according to sources would offer Ukraine with a similar to NATO protection assurance, in which any later "serious, intentional, and sustained aggression" by the Russian Federation on the country "shall be regarded as an attack jeopardizing the tranquility of the Western nations." This implies a military response. Yet unlike a capable Ukraine's armed forces – Ukraine's best protection against renewed hostilities – the success of the side agreement would depend on the commitment of Western powers, including Trump, to act with force to Russia's hostilities, something they have {not