Trump’s pro-Kremlin ‘peace’ plan for Ukraine will encourage Putin to wage more war

The made-in-Moscow 28-point “peace” plan President Donald Trump has been trying to force on Ukraine will never bring peace.

Even the revisions after last week’s international uproar over the outrageously pro-Russian document haven’t resolved key issues. Putin has already made clear this week that he won’t accept less than Ukrainian surrender.

Trump is ready to press Ukraine to bow to a plan that guarantees further Russian destruction. Let’s hope the backlash to the proposal stiffens the backbone of GOP supporters of Ukraine against the pro-Russian White House crowd.

The drama hasn’t ended yet.

The 28-point plan was cooked up by Trump’s feckless negotiator, Steve Witkoff, and first son-in-law Jared Kushner. Two real estate moguls with zero knowledge of Ukraine wrote a draft plan based heavily on input from Kremlin insider Kirill Dmitriev.

Dmitriev is Putin’s representative for economic cooperation and has wooed Witkoff and Kushner with fantasies of joint U.S.-Russian investment. The three men met for secret talks in October in Miami, at Witkoff’s home.

» READ MORE: ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’ captures the horror and the hope of Ukraine’s battle against Russia | Trudy Rubin

The resulting document reads like Kremlin talking points; some Russia experts point out that the English syntax sounds as if it were google translated directly from the Russian text.

“Even Neville Chamberlain would blush at this,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), referencing the British prime minister who infamously appeased Adolph Hitler. “It’s embarrassing to our country.”

Painfully true.

The deal demands suicidal concessions from Ukraine, the victim of Russian aggression, but none from the Russia invader. The points echoed a Putin wish list, and green-light Moscow’s complete subordination of Ukraine, by shrinking Kyiv’s army, limiting its alliances and weapons, and leaving it wide-open to future Russian attacks.

Trump was — and still is — ready to sell out Kyiv in pursuit of an imaginary Nobel Peace Prize along with lucrative business deals with Moscow and predatory deals for Ukrainian minerals (both are touted in the plan).

In clear evidence of Russian untrustworthiness, Dmitriev leaked the proposal last week to journalist Barak Ravid of Axios in order to box in the Americans before consultations with Ukraine. Yet Trump quickly endorsed this capitulation document.

Dmitriev’s betrayal alone should disqualify him from further negotiations, but there’s no sign Witkoff will abandon his new Russian pal. As for Witkoff and Kushner, Trump is rewarding their blunders by sending them to meet Putin next week.

How do we know for sure that Dmitriev was the leaker? Because Witkoff posted on X, “He [Axios’ Ravid] must have got this from K …,” meaning Kirillov. Apparently, Witkoff thought he was sending a private message, another sign he isn’t up to the job.

Equally egregious, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who does know something about Russia, was kept out of the loop by Witkoff. After the leak, he got a firestorm of complaints from upset European counterparts and GOP supporters of Ukraine. That led him to call Sen. Mike Rounds (R., N.D.), who was at an international security conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, along with a bipartisan Senate delegation.

Rounds recounted to journalists that Rubio described Witkoff’s plan as a Russian “wish list” and not an actual U.S. proposal. Under White House pressure, Rubio soon reversed himself and posted online that the senators were mistaken. A State Department spokesperson falsely accused the senators of lying

» READ MORE: The U.S. must support Ukraine in peace deal, not help fulfill Putin’s wish list | Editorial

I spoke to Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.), who was with the delegation during the call (although not on the phone). “I heard what [my colleagues] said immediately after the call,” he told me. “They couldn’t have been clearer about what Marco said, and what the complications were. I hope after today we’ll see a proposal which enables Ukraine to remain free and sovereign and defend itself in the future.”

With this White House, don’t hold your breath.

The pushback from GOP backers of Ukraine, as well as from the EU and Kyiv, was so intense, however, that Rubio rushed to “update” the document in weekend negotiations with Ukrainian officials in Geneva.

Very sensitive issues remain unresolved, yet Trump is still pressuring Kyiv to sign on this month. There is an acute danger that he and Vice President JD Vance may try again to bushwhack Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, who will probably visit the White House this month.

European allies, who were not consulted on the deal, have been desperately trying to bolster Zelensky and get Trump’s ear.

But given the president’s eagerness for a “deal” — any deal, no matter how fatal to Ukraine — Trump is more likely to squeeze Kyiv than press Putin for concessions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made clear this week that Putin is only interested in the original pro-Russian points, and not any revision that protects Ukraine from future attack.

It’s important for Americans to understand why the Putin-Trump 28-point deal wouldn’t stop Russian aggression and would only encourage Moscow to continue the war.

As former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk pointed out: “Ukraine has never attempted to seize Russian territory. Russia, on the other hand, has repeatedly invaded Ukraine and continues to strike Ukrainian cities daily.”

The bottom line for achieving peace is that any plan must strengthen Ukraine’s defenses and provide concrete U.S. guarantees that Russia won’t destroy the Ukrainian state in the future. The 28-point plan does just the opposite (and the revisions aren’t strong enough.)

The Kirillov proposal shrinks the size of the Ukrainian army by a third while putting no limits on Russia’s army, which is roughly twice the size of Ukraine’s. It prevents Ukraine from ever joining NATO and forbids NATO peacekeepers on its soil.

» READ MORE: As Ukraine falters, Trump tries to hand the country to Putin with a shamefully pro-Russia peace plan | Trudy Rubin

Imagine if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had endorsed a peace plan between Winston Churchill and Hitler in 1940 that left Hitler free to expand his army while demanding Churchill halve his forces, ground his Spitfires, and promise never to ask the Yanks for help.

Which brings us to the ugliest part of Trump’s fake peace efforts. There is a lot of loose verbiage about “guarantees” against a future Russian invasion in the 28 points, and in a side letter offering Kyiv a “security assurance modeled on the principles of [NATO’s] Article 5.” Note the weasel words.

Let me assure you, I have read and reread the texts, and they offer Ukraine no firm U.S. or allied commitment to intervene if Russia attacks again.

The real hint of the worthlessness of this Kremlin-born document comes with point 16, which proclaims: “Russia will enshrine in law its policy of non-aggression toward Europe and Ukraine.”

Does Trump not know Putin has violated every accord he or his predecessors signed with Kyiv. That includes the 1994 Budapest Memorandum by which Ukraine surrendered its nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees of sovereignty from the U.S., the U.K., and Russia? We know how much those paper assurances have been worth.

POTUS refuses to face reality: Putin respects only strength; there will be no peace until the costs of war are more than the Russian economy and military can bear.

Peace negotiations are worthless unless backed by tougher U.S. sanctions and sales of U.S. air defense systems and missiles to Ukraine.

By his continual concessions to Moscow, Trump has convinced the Russian leader that he is a weak pushover. That guarantees that Russia will continue the war.