Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan – A Good Start, Unless It's Sabotaged

A leading military/international relations scholar compares his year-old peace recommendations with Trump’s new 28-point plan. A Landmarks exclusive.

In an article for Landmarks almost a year ago, I examined theories of war termination and applied them to the case of Ukraine in order to determine what policies would best suit the cause of peace. I concluded that, since the start of war:

The basic policy [of Western states] has remained the same: strengthen Ukraine and weaken Russia. This has not been successful. The longer the war has continued, the more the balance of power has shifted in Russia’s favor. This trend seems likely to continue, and it is probable that the longer Ukraine waits to make peace with Russia, the worse its position will be. In the meantime, it will suffer continued losses of people and physical infrastructure. It is clear, therefore, that the time has come for a shift in policy away from helping Ukraine fight its war and towards peacemaking.

Beyond this I drew seven specific policy conclusions:

1. Increased pressure on Russia is unlikely to bring the war to an end in the short to medium term.

2. Negative and positive inducements to Ukraine are more likely to bring the war to a quick conclusion.

3. Firmness [towards Ukraine] should assist with the problem of internal opposition to peace within Ukraine.

4. A formal peace treaty is much preferable to a Korean-style ceasefire.

5. Issues such as territorial boundaries should be formally resolved in any treaty.

6. Both Ukraine and Russia need reassurance that the end of the war will truly be the end, not merely a respite used by the other side to recover prior to a restart.

7. Efforts will be required to neutralize spoilers, most notably European states.

Since then, American efforts to bring the war in Ukraine to an end have swung around wildly, with President Trump at times blaming and threatening the Ukrainians and at others blaming and threatening the Russians. The president’s twists and turns reflect not just his own mercurial character and what seems to be a habit of repeating whatever the last person he spoke to told him, but also the fact that he had two envoys reporting to him about Ukraine (Kellogg and Witkoff), who appeared to have completely different views on the matter.

To this can be added the further fact, related to the above, that his administration had never come up with a detailed peace proposal. The initial idea seemed to have been to browbeat both sides into accepting an immediate, unconditional ceasefire. Trump managed to push a reluctant Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, into agreeing, but Russian leader Vladimir Putin refused. This left Trump without an obvious way forward.

Now, though, Mr. Witkoff, supposedly in association with Russian businessman Kirill Dmitriev, has brought out a 28-point peace plan that has sparked a passionate response from those who dislike it, especially Ukraine’s European allies.

The key features of the plan are:

· Point 6: The Ukrainian army is to be limited to 600,000 men. This would make it the largest in Europe after Russia, and an army that size would be a tremendous financial burden on Ukraine. It’s smaller than Ukraine has now, and so will likely be viewed negatively by it, but it’s also much larger than the Russians would probably want given their declared war aim of “demilitarization.” It’s not clear why this number has been chosen. The Ukrainians are already demanding more (for a total of 800,000). This could prove a serious sticking point.

· Points 7 & 8: “Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO, and NATO agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will not be admitted in the future,” and “NATO agrees not to station troops in Ukraine.” This concedes one of Russia’s primary demands. It’s hard to see Ukraine accepting this at this point in time, especially with European states urging it to do the opposite.

· Point 10: “US guarantee: The US will receive compensation for the guarantee. If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantee. If Russia invades Ukraine, in addition to a decisive coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be reinstated, recognition of the new territory and all other benefits of this deal will be revoked. If Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg without cause, the security guarantee will be deemed invalid.” This attempts to meet Ukraine’s demand that the peace be such as to ensure that Russia does not invade it again. That said, it falls short of an absolute promise to come to Ukraine’s military assistance in such an event.

· Points 12 & 14. Frozen Russian funds to be used to help Ukrainian reconstruction, with the US taking 50% of resulting profits (this last point being somewhat remarkable!).

· Point 13. Sanctions against Russia to be gradually lifted.

· Point 20: “a. Ukraine will adopt EU rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities. b. Both countries will agree to abolish all discriminatory measures and guarantee the rights of Ukrainian and Russian media and education. c. All Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and prohibited.” This clause is meant to meet Russian demands about the “denazification” of Ukraine and the elimination of Ukrainian legislation discriminating against the Russian language and that branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church formerly associated with the Moscow Patriarchate. Some Russians might consider the terms rather weak: after all, “EU rules” haven’t prevented countries like Latvia and Estonia from discriminating against the Russian language, and Ukrainian legislation already prohibits Nazi symbols. The laws in question just aren’t very vigorously enforced.

· Point 21: Territorial swap. Ukraine will withdraw from those parts of Donetsk and Luhansk Provinces that it still controls, and Russia will withdraw from Kharkiv and Dnipro Provinces. The US will recognize Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, and those parts of Zaporozhe and Kherson Provinces as de facto Russian territory. This will be a particularly tough pill for Ukraine to swallow, and Zelensky has already repeated his long-standing position that Russian conquests should never be recognized. (In this regard, what “de facto” recognition means isn’t obvious, as de facto more commonly means accepting the reality without formally recognizing it.)

· Point 28: A ceasefire will come into effect once Russia and Ukraine agree to the terms of the plan and withdraw to agreed lines. This is important as it makes it clear that agreement must precede any ceasefire. This is contrary to previous Ukrainian and European demands that a ceasefire should precede any negotiations or agreement.

The question which thus arises is whether this outline fits with the recommendations I repeated above. The answer is: partially. The terms match military realities. They demand more of the weaker party than of the stronger party. While this may be unjust, it is realistic. The plan envisages a formal treaty preceding a ceasefire rather than a Korean-style ceasefire without a broader agreement. That is much preferable. It also provides (caveats above not withstanding) some degree of recognition of new territorial realities, which is important for the prevention of future conflict. Again, that is preferable to the alternative. And finally, the plan does at least make an effort to provide some degree of security guarantees to both sides. This is done by means of the proposed limitations on the size of the Ukrainian army, the prohibition on Ukrainian NATO membership, and the somewhat vague pledge by the United States to assist Ukraine and reimpose sanctions on Russia if the latter invades Ukraine again. The exact terms are probably not to either side’s liking, and arguably some more creative thinking is needed on this issue, but some effort has been made to address the issue of mutual distrust.

So far, therefore, more or less so good, although it is notable the plan does nothing to address the point I mentioned previously about spoilers. It is very clear that European states are acting as spoilers in the conflict, seeking to scupper any settlement that makes any formal concessions of any kind to the Russian Federation. This could be seen in a set of amendments to the plan produced by European leaders, which deleted from it any meaningful concessions to the Russians, such as limits on the Ukrainian army and a prohibition on Ukraine joining NATO. With promises of continued aid, Europe as a collective whole continues to urge Ukraine to fight on. But it has yet to produce any meaningful counterplan of its own other than continued war. Added to this, some European officials, particularly from France, continue to talk of sending troops to Ukraine the moment that a ceasefire is signed. This is a proposal that is guaranteed to make the Kremlin keep fighting.

So far, the Americans’ response to European spoiling has been simply to ignore it, apparently on the basis that since the Europeans have nothing constructive to offer they merit no part in the peace process. This is understandable, and may ultimately prove to be the correct approach. But the danger remains that European leaders may be successful in persuading their Ukrainian friends to resist American demands that they make meaningful concessions. Some consideration needs to be given to how to deal with such a situation.

Beyond that, it’s not very clear how committed the American side is to its own proposals. There are already some signs of possible flip flopping. After talks between the Ukrainians and the Americans in Geneva, it was announced that the 28 points had been reduced to 19. Some of those that remain have been amended, while those left out are being referred back to presidents Trump and Zelensky. This could mean one of two things: either that the Americans and Ukrainians could not agree on the key points and so decided to put them aside for the time being; or that the Americans watered down their plan to satisfy the Ukrainians. On Tuesday, Trump declared that the plan “has been fine-tuned, with additional input from both sides, and there are only a few remaining points of disagreement.” The problem with this statement is that “both sides” seems to mean Ukraine and the United States not Ukraine and Russia. The Russians were not consulted on the “fine-tuning.” If it turns out that this involves removing key points such as Ukrainian territorial concessions and Ukraine not joining NATO, then the result is entirely predictable – the Russians will reject the revised proposal.

This scenario seems quite possible. The New York Times reports that “Some Trump administration officials believe that revisions to the peace framework that emerged from meetings between U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators in Geneva could lead President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to dismiss it out of hand.” We shall have to wait and see whether this does in fact come about, but if it does, it will be due to a lack of willingness to stick to a firm line. Having dropped the policy of continually ramping up pressure on Russia, the Trump administration will have failed to replace it with a policy of pressing its vision firmly on the Ukrainians and their European allies. No doubt at that point, the finger of blame for the collapse of the plan will then be pointed at Moscow, and Washington will zigzag back towards talking about pressuring Russia, without probably doing much in that regard. The war will carry on, and its dynamics will continue along their existing path until Ukraine’s military position degrades to the extent that the need for a new round of diplomacy becomes urgent.

Past experience suggests that this is the most probable outcome. And even if that proves wrong, and there is agreement on the outline of a peace plan, that outline is so vaguely worded on some matters that things may still fall apart once negotiations begin on the details and on issues such as the staging of events (which things come in which order). It is hard to be very optimistic. That said, for the first time there is at least a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. The issue now is whether Trump and his team have the will to push those involved in that direction, or whether they suddenly swerve back the way they came. If somehow they succeed, it will be a remarkable achievement, worthy of the highest praise.