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Initially, Donald Trump seemed to adopt a resolute position regarding the Ukrainian conflict. Following issuing threats of "serious repercussions" in August should Vladimir Putin carried on blocking peace negotiations, he finally imposed major sanctions on Russia's two largest petroleum corporations, these major energy companies. This decision significantly hindered the Russian leader's ability to support his military invasion in the region.

Yet, through his latest 28-point peace initiative for the conflict, that was developed by both nations' diplomats excluding Ukraine's or EU involvement, the former president has clearly returned to his pro-Putin stance.

Favoring Military Action

This plan would in practice benefit the Russian leader for attacking a sovereign nation while putting the country's democratic system in jeopardy. Despite ringing declarations that "Ukraine's autonomy will be affirmed", significant aspects of the proposal effectively weaken that very sovereignty. What represents a Russian ideal would likely be a Ukrainian nightmare.

Demonstrating his corporate past, Trump persists to treat the Ukrainian conflict as a mere territorial dispute, implying ceding Russia a part of Ukrainian land will satisfy the leader. Yet, Russia's military campaign is not merely about dominating a destroyed area of economically weakened area in the Donbas region. Rather, it is about the nation's political system – and the Russian leader's obvious desire to weaken it so it no longer acts as an enticing standard for the Russia's population of the democratic leadership that Putin's growing dictatorship prevents them.

Land Surrenders

While freezing in place the presently separated oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the initiative would force the nation to give up the entire this eastern territory. Aside from favoring the Russian Federation with territory that its troops have been failed to capture in exceeding a lengthy period of conflict, this giveaway would make Ukraine's defensive positions dangerously weakened.

This region is the location of Ukraine's highly-touted "stronghold system", the entrenched defensive positions that constitute a critical barrier to enemy progress. Trump would have Ukraine abandon these fortifications, providing Russian forces a clear route to the capital should he eventually decide to restart the hostilities.

Military Restrictions

Then, in a action that would make future conflict more feasible for Russia, the plan would require the nation to reduce the scale of its armed forces from their current approximately 800,000 personnel to a limit of 600,000. Importantly, Trump's initiative imposes no equivalent restrictions on Russian forces.

Apparently as a gesture to Putin's campaign to characterize Ukraine's democratically elected leadership as extremists, Trump's proposal asserts: "Any Nazi doctrine and actions must be condemned and banned." Seemingly to highlight this point, it requires that "Ukraine will hold elections in this period" of a ceasefire agreement. Meanwhile, the proposal places no obligation that Putin jeopardize his authoritarian rule by holding votes in Russia.

Security Commitments

Certainly, the initiative includes Russia commit not to "invade neighboring countries" and to "enshrine in regulation its position of peaceful relations towards Europe and the Ukrainian people". But given that the Russian leadership has violated comparable accords in the history – including the 1994 agreement, in which the Russian government committed to honor the nation's sovereignty in return for giving up its former Soviet nuclear arsenal, and the previous peace deals, in which Russia promised to a truce and a return of captured land in the region to Kyiv – why should we have confidence in this commitment now?

That is why the Ukrainian government has been so adamant on external protection assurances. Although the plan warns of a "decisive unified armed reaction" should Russia restart its aggression, and provides that "The nation will receive dependable defense commitments", the particulars vary from unclear to alarming. The initiative would not just deny Ukraine accession to NATO but also preclude member states from stationing military personnel on Ukrainian territory, thereby blocking the security presence, presumptively led by Britain and France, on which the Ukrainian government had been depending to deter Russia from rebuilding his diminished forces, restocking, and reinvading.

Global Response

Another parallel deal reportedly would offer Ukraine with a similar to NATO security guarantee, in which any future "serious, planned, and sustained armed attack" by the Russian Federation on the country "will be treated as an attack endangering the tranquility of the transatlantic community." This implies a defense action. Yet unlike a strong Ukraine's armed forces – the nation's primary defense against additional invasion – the effectiveness of the parallel accord would depend on the dedication of Nato leaders, such as Trump, to react with force to Russia's hostilities, a response they have {not