U.S. President Donald Trump greets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, in August.ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images
Every war ends. Some end better than others. How will the war in Ukraine end?
The 28-point peace plan put forward late last week by the Trump administration, and which U.S. President Donald Trump at first suggested that Ukraine had to hop to and accept by this Thursday – or else – set the stage for a miserable ending.
That has been averted, at least for now. The reason is that the Trump administration is, like the boss himself, chaotic, impulsive, impatient and above all faithless, especially to his own pronouncements.
Mr. Trump’s first impulse is always to twist the arm of the weaker party, in this case Ukraine. That’s one way to end the war. It’s just that it won’t conclude it in a manner that benefits U.S. interests or U.S. allies – unless you believe, as Mr. Trump often appears to, that Russian President Vladimir Putin getting his way in Ukraine, Ukraine losing its independence and NATO becoming a dead letter would somehow be in his interest.
What’s in the U.S. 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine?
Duelling peace plans show relief for Ukraine remains a long way off
Last week’s plan, to be fair, did not call for a full-blown Ukrainian surrender. But it took a big step in that direction by demanding that Ukraine not only give up territory occupied by Russia, but also cede territory that Ukrainian defenders have since 2014 prevented the invader from occupying, including a fortress belt in Donetsk that protects the rest of the country. It also called on Ukraine to downsize its armed forces by about a third, further weakening its ability to defend itself in the future.
Moscow was asked to make no comparable concessions. This was not a roadmap to enduring peace, but a blueprint for an eventual restart of the war by Mr. Putin.
The path to conflict resolution does not lie in promising an invader that what he failed to achieve last time will be easier next time. It guarantees a next time.
In any case, though Mr. Putin accused Ukraine of blocking peace by criticizing the plan, he never endorsed its provisions. If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had given in to the duress and said yes, the response would likely have been additional demands from the Kremlin.
But good news: That’s all now in the realm of speculation. Until at least tomorrow.
On Sunday, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio flew to Europe to talk with the Ukrainians – while Mr. Trump was busy on social media, once again blaming Ukraine for the war and accusing the Ukrainians of expressing “zero gratitude” – the plan and ultimatum both evaporated.
In their place, there are the beginnings of new plan, which loses some of the more pro-Russian elements of the previous proposal. It also apparently dispenses with novel elements designed by or for Mr. Trump, such as a provision that, while US$100-billion of frozen Russian assets would be used to finance the rebuilding of Ukraine, Washington would get a share of the “profits.”
The Kremlin on Monday said that a European counterproposal to a U.S. 28-point peace plan for Ukraine was not constructive and that it simply did not work for Moscow.
Reuters
Details of the new plan were not public as of Monday evening, but settlement of the most contentious issue, namely territory, has reportedly been booted to future discussion.
There’s reason to hope that the result of all this back and forth will be an outline for peace that Ukraine can accept, and Europe and Canada too.
Ukraine will have to cede territory. More precisely, it will almost certainly have to acknowledge that land Russia currently occupies, though it will remain officially Ukrainian, will also continue to be occupied.
But if Ukraine is offered the continuation of hefty military and financial aid from Europe and Canada to deter a future Russian attack (under Mr. Trump, the U.S. no longer donates weapons to Ukraine, but instead sells them at a profit), along with guarantees that any future attack will be met with an overwhelming Western response, then Kyiv should be willing to accept.
The prize is Ukrainian independence. The loss of considerable territory is a hard blow, but securing Ukrainian freedom and autonomy – including the possibility of eventually joining the other former Soviet satellites in the European Union – would be a great achievement.
The key question is how the guy who started the war will respond to this offer, or any other.
We know what Mr. Putin wants: to reverse Ukraine’s 1991 independence from the Soviet Union.
But what will he accept? That will depend on how much of a price the war is imposing on him, which comes down to Ukrainian resistance, and allied support for that resistance.
The problem with last week’s Trump peace plan – its pro-Russian tilt, its impositions on Ukraine, its sowing of conflict within NATO – is that it has surely strengthened Mr. Putin’s belief that time is on his side.
It confirms that the Trump administration is eager to wash its hands of the war, even though Russia has suffered a million casualties while America is losing no blood or treasure. It also suggests that if Russia keeps the war going, offers from the White House should improve, American pressure on Kyiv should increase, and the cleavage between Washington and Europe should grow.
All of this Mr. Putin assumes. And he may be right.