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At first, the former US president appeared to take a firm stance concerning Ukraine. Following making threats of "serious ramifications" in August should Russia's president persisted blocking peace talks, the former president eventually imposed substantial restrictions on the Russian biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. This decision significantly affected the Russian leader's capacity to finance his aggression in the region.

But, through his latest 28-point peace initiative for the conflict, that was drafted by US and Russian representatives excluding Ukraine's or EU involvement, Trump has clearly gone back to his Russia-friendly stance.

Favoring Military Action

The former president's proposal would effectively reward the Russian leader for attacking a sovereign nation while placing Ukraine's political freedom in peril. Although bold declarations that "The nation's sovereignty will be upheld", large portions of the proposal actually weaken that essential autonomy. Seen as a Russian ideal would likely be a catastrophe for the nation.

Showing his corporate background, the former president continues to treat the Ukrainian conflict as a simple border issue, implying handing Putin a section of Ukrainian land will please the leader. But, Russia's invasion is not only about dominating a destroyed region of deindustrialized territory in eastern Ukraine. Rather, it is about the nation's political system – and the Russian leader's clear desire to destroy it so it no longer functions as an enticing standard for the Russia's population of the responsible leadership that his increasing autocracy withholds them.

Border Concessions

While freezing in status the already separated regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the initiative would force the nation to give up all of this eastern territory. Aside from rewarding Russia with area that its military have been unsuccessful to seize in more than a decade of conflict, this surrender would leave Ukraine's defenses critically weakened.

Donetsk is the site of Ukraine's much-vaunted "defensive line", the entrenched military defenses that are a essential impediment to enemy progress. The proposal would have Ukraine abandon these fortifications, giving Putin a clear path to the capital should he later opt to resume the war.

Defense Limitations

Then, in a action that would make additional conflict easier for the Russian military, the plan would mandate the nation to diminish the numbers of its troops from their existing large number personnel to a maximum of 600,000. Significantly, Trump's plan sets no similar constraints on Russia's military.

In what appears as a accommodation to Putin's efforts to portray the nation's chosen by the people government as Nazis, the plan declares: "Any extremist ideology and activities must be rejected and banned." Seemingly to highlight this aspect, it requires that "The nation will hold elections in this period" of a truce. At the same time, Trump places no requirement that the Russian leader jeopardize his regime by allowing democratic processes in his own country.

Security Commitments

Admittedly, the proposal has Russia promise not to "enter neighboring countries" and to "incorporate in regulation its stance of peaceful relations towards Europe and Ukraine". Yet given that the Russian leadership has breached equivalent accords in the history – for example the Budapest accord, in which Russia pledged to respect Ukraine's borders in exchange for giving up its former Soviet nuclear weapons, and the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, in which Russia committed to a ceasefire and a return of occupied land in eastern Ukraine to the government – for what reason should we trust Russia on this occasion?

That is why the Ukrainian government has been so insistent on international security guarantees. While the proposal promises a "decisive unified defense action" in case Russia renew its military campaign, and states that "Ukraine will receive strong security guarantees", the details include unclear to alarming. The plan would not just prevent the nation alliance membership but also prohibit Nato members from positioning military personnel on Ukraine's soil, effectively precluding the security presence, likely headed by Britain and France, on which Ukraine had been depending to deter Putin from restoring his weakened military, rearming, and reinvading.

World Response

Another parallel deal reportedly would offer the nation with a Nato-style protection assurance, in which any subsequent "significant, intentional, and sustained aggression" by Russia on the country "will be treated as an attack threatening the peace and security of the Western nations." This implies a defense action. Yet unlike a powerful Ukrainian military – Ukraine's most reliable defense against additional hostilities – the credibility of the parallel accord would rely on the commitment of alliance members, such as Trump, to respond with force to Putin's aggression, something they have {not