What "peace plan" from Trump and Putin means and how politics will affect battlefield
US representatives handed the Ukrainian leadership 28 points. These are not the points the peace is meant to be built on; they are the points from which a conversation about peace is supposed to start, a set framework that Ukraine would have to agree to if it wanted Russia to immediately cease hostilities.
In essence, this is a capitulation plan:
1. Ukraine voluntarily hands over to Russia the entire territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Ukraine also cedes those parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions that Russia currently occupies.
Ukraine agrees that, including Crimea, all these lands belong to Russia.
2. Ukraine agrees to lift the sanctions imposed on Russia by our allies since 2014 over the occupation of Ukrainian territory. That is, to allow Russia to rebuild its economy and ramp up funding for the Russian army.
3. Ukraine must voluntarily drop its NATO bid and amend its Constitution. NATO troops will not be stationed on Ukrainian territory. In other words, to renounce the only security mechanism currently available.
4. Ukraine must cut its army to 600,000 personnel. In other words, no matter what the aggressor does, the victim of aggression has to limit its own ability to defend itself.
We can see how Trump’s peace initiatives on Gaza and Iran actually work. The escalation of hostilities has been reduced, but blood is still being shed, and there is no prospect of a sustainable peace. And there is one difference: the United States is maximally strengthening the Israel Defense Forces, which in practice are the key guarantor of any peace arrangements, and the US even took part in joint combat operations. In the Ukrainian format, there is no talk of this.
So instead of strengthening its ally Ukraine, the United States is agreeing to a weakening. And this weakening is not only about acknowledging defeat on the battlefield and the loss of territory. It is also about undermining the state’s ability to develop and defend itself independently.
Instead of reinforcing a united NATO front against Russia, Trump is splitting that front and offering Europe no shared security strategy.
But Trump’s plan will carry weight only in one case: if Ukraine agrees to it. Without Kyiv’s consent to these 28 points, they will remain just another draft, most of whose provisions Putin has tried to impose more than once before.
Trump has not issued an official ultimatum on behalf of the United States. Instead, he has acted as if his part of the job as US president is already done, and is trying to personally pressure Ukrainian leaders into accepting it.
Ukraine’s task is to show that this US position does not match the real situation on the front line and does not address the root causes of this war.
So, as before, Ukraine’s stance depends first and foremost on Ukraine’s own actions and strategy, not on proposed plans. A significant number of NATO allies support us and do not agree with Trump. There is also no stable position in the United States itself in favor of such a fragile peace.
The corruption scandal in Ukraine’s government is not connected to the peace talks; it is a domestic matter.
The key factor in any successful peace negotiations is the situation on the battlefield.
Only a stabilized front and Russia’s inability to breach it can compel Putin to make concessions. And achieving that is fully within our power. On many sections of the front, we are successfully holding off the enemy, and we can do the same across the entire front.
Only the strong are supported and counted on, those who can defend their strategies. Ukraine needs its own strategy, too.
Ukraine has every opportunity to carry out the critical changes needed on the front line, as well as critical changes in the fight against corruption, and to counter Trump’s "peace plan" with a real peace plan of its own. The only guarantor of security can be the Defense Forces of Ukraine.
Political and informational maneuvers in war are secondary. The core substance of war is the front line, and only there is the groundwork for real negotiations determined.
Yurii Butusov, Censor.NET
