Summary
Donald Trump’s advisers are proposing plans to end the Ukraine war that involve territorial concessions to Russia and ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine.
These proposals aim to pressure both sides into negotiations, leveraging military aid as a carrot or stick. Plans include freezing current battle lines or creating demilitarized zones.
Analysts doubt the feasibility, citing likely resistance from Ukraine, European allies, and U.S. lawmakers.
Trump’s approach reflects his campaign pledge to resolve the conflict quickly, but critics argue it risks legitimizing Russian aggression and undermining Western alliances.
It’s not a civil war if “separatists” get weekly weapons, fuel and food convoys from Russia, and the whole thing was started by GRU agents, and requires thousands of Russian troops. That was the case approximately from 2014 to 2022. I have a prejudice against people who refer to the Russian-backed insurgency in Eastern Ukraine as a “civil war”. It typically tells of which information sources they prefer and consume.
Every war is prolonged as long as armies are willing and able to fight, and politicians don’t make peace.
The easiest way to get a sustainable peace is simple: Putin needs to withdraw troops from Ukraine. Alas, he’s not in the mood - not yet. But he regularly orders polls and reads results, and has some understanding of how Russia’s economy is doing. He could be in the mood within a year.
Compared to supporting Ukraine through another year of fighting to obtain a lasting peace at acceptable terms (ideally: internationally recognized borders), making an unstable and unjust peace by undermining Ukraine (so they’d cave in and agree to an unjust peace in the minimum amount of time) might not be the best option.
Unfortunately it looks that Trump is going to try exactly that. And there’s hardly anyone in the US who can alter the outcome. Other members of NATO can alter the outcome however, by (almost) doubling their support.
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