The Trump administration’s “28-point plan” to end the Ukraine war released last week was too generous to Russia and too restrictive on Ukraine.
After angry responses in Ukraine and in the U.S. Congress, negotiators from both countries are fixing the plan. And they need to.
The people of Ukraine are exhausted from three years of war and nightly air attacks from Russia and Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration is weakened by corruption scandals. And the military, despite now being the most skilled military in the world, has made no advances in taking back territory Vladimir Putin’s army has conquered.
EXHAUSTED UKRAINE MAY BE READY FOR PEACE
Ukraine needs peace badly. But not at any price.
I just spent a week in Ukraine, where I met with soldiers, experts, clerics, and politicians. I interviewed men and women, young and old, on the street, in the bars, at the mall. I asked them about life during war, about their idea of victory, and their conditions for peace.
Ukraine is a free and very educated country, and as you would find in the U.S., opinions vary immensely. Two overwhelming attitudes were these: Exhaustion with the war, and disdain for the idea of granting Ukrainian territory to Russia. These two demands are in tension, obviously, and any peace deal would leave Ukrainians unhappy. Here are some principles, though, for how to make a grudging deal with Putin.
The Security Guarantee Needs to be Strong
A ceasefire with Vladimir Putin is worth as much to Ukrainians as a ceasefire with a rattlesnake. “The Russians lie. They always lie,” exclaimed Natalia Chernyshova, a spokeswoman for the government of Dnipro, in a typical expression of Ukrainian distrust.
Ukrainians desperately want safety, as they are exhausted and enraged by Russia’s near-nightly missile and drone attacks on cities across Ukraine. To feel any sense of safety under a ceasefire, Ukrainians need two things: Help building up their military, and a promise that the U.S. and Europe will come to their aid if Russia attacks again.
Put another way, the only way to deter Putin is to threaten him with crushing force.
Trump’s 28-point plan included a security guarantee, but Ukrainians don’t necessarily trust such a promise from a U.S. president. That’s because in 1994, Ukraine agreed to the Budapest Memorandum, in which the U.S., the U.K., and Russia (yes, Russia) agreed to defend Ukraine from any aggression if Ukraine would hand over its Soviet-era nuclear arms.
After Ukraine did its part, disposing of all its nukes, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, and the U.S. and U.K. didn’t protect Ukraine. The Budapest Agreement didn’t have the power of a treaty, and so Bill Clinton’s signature in no way bound President Obama in 2014 or President Biden in 2022.
Ukrainians want a binding security agreement. That’s one reason Zelensky has always pushed for NATO membership.
A final deal will need a more convincing pledge from the U.S. Perhaps it will take the form of a bilateral treaty.
Military strength
The best security guarantee, of course, is having an awesome military yourself. Ukraine’s military is excellent. It’s probably the best in Europe. It’s certainly, with Russia, the best at fighting modern warfare (which involves lots of drones).
That’s why Ukrainian officials and Ukraine supporters bucked so hard at the requirement that Ukraine cap its armed forces at 600,000 – that’s a manpower reduction of at least one third from the current levels.
While the 28-point plan included deals between the U.S. and Ukraine on minerals, infrastructure, and natural gas, there was no mention of helping Ukraine build up its defensive capabilities even more.
The point of a powerful military is not primarily to win wars, but to prevent wars by deterring would-be invaders. The best deterrent to another Putin invasion would be a Ukrainian military made stronger by its allies. A peace deal should include pledges by the U.S. to help Ukraine strengthen its military.
This could take the form of U.S. financing to Ukraine’s burgeoning domestic defense industry. Nobody knows better how to make drones, ground drones, and other modern warfare equipment than Ukrainian defense companies. If the U.S. lined up financing, these companies could scale quickly.
In turn, these cutting-edge companies could sell to the U.S. military and share knowledge, providing a win-win.
Territorial concessions
Russia seized control of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. Since invading again in 2022, Russia has taken more of eastern Ukraine.
Many Ukrainians, and most American pro-Ukraine hawks, reject any peace deal in which Putin doesn’t retain all ill-gotten territories to Ukraine. That is not a realistic option.
The middle ground that many Ukrainians accept involves ceding de facto control of these Russian-occupied territories, while never granting that they are de jure part of Russia.
Trump’s 28-point plan tried to do that, but in a very clumsy way that made no sense. It granted Russia “de facto” control of all the Ukrainian land it has taken by force. But if a legal document grants de facto control to Russia, is that not granting de jure control to Russia.
RUSSIAN DRONES ATTACK UKRAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTER
The 28-point plan goes further by granting Russia control over the entire Donetsk province, even though Ukraine still controls much of that territory, including the cities of Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, and Slovyansk. Handing Ukrainian-controlled territory to Russia really undermines the idea that Russia is not being officially ceded land in reward for invading.
A better approach would explicitly state that the U.S. and the international community hold that Ukraine’s borders are its original 1991 borders, and that Russia is illegally occupying Crimea and Eastern — but include a pledge from Ukraine to not try to retake those territories by force.