A Trump Peace Plan for Ukraine—or Just a Phantom?
Reasons for skepticism.
NOT MANY PEOPLE had “new Trump Russia/Ukraine peace plan” on their bingo card for this week. But here we are: On Wednesday morning, Axios reported, citing U.S. and Russian officials, that “the Trump administration has been secretly working in consultation with Russia to draft a new plan to end the war in Ukraine.” If that sounds bad, the follow-up was worse: The 28-point plan apparently calls for Ukraine to surrender the remainder of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. (In a bizarre twist, some reports say that Ukraine would retain legal ownership of these territories but Russia would “lease” them and pay rent—a very Trump/Witkoff touch, if true.) The two other provinces formally annexed by Russia—Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—would remain partly under Russian occupation, with current lines of contact more or less frozen and possibly with minor Russian concessions. Ukraine would reportedly also agree to halve the size of its military and reduce its long-range-weapons stockpile in return for unspecified U.S. “security guarantees.”
Is this the betrayal of Ukraine by the Trump administration—and a masks-off moment revealing that Trump has been Team Kremlin all along, and that his pro-Ukraine noises and gestures have been for show? Some analysts think so, most notably Phillips O’Brien, Substack blogger and professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. O’Brien, who has always maintained that Trump’s affinity with Vladimir Putin was real, sees himself vindicated by the news—which he considers reliable especially since Politico came out with a similar report later on Wednesday. As O’Brien bluntly puts it: “The story is out and the fait accompli to screw Ukraine (and Europe) will soon be delivered to Kyiv.” He points out that “Ukraine has had no input into the process” and “European states have had no input into the process.” In his view, any notion of Trump “pivoting” toward Ukraine and turning his anger on Vladimir Putin has always been a “self-destructive fantasy.”
Coming a week after revelations that the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein claimed to have given top-level Russian officials unspecified information on Trump, this latest twist in the Trump/Russia/Ukraine saga may well rekindle some of the darkest fears about the Trump/Putin connection and about a Trump plan to force Ukraine into de facto capitulation.
I am a Trump pivot skeptic, if only because there have been how many pivots, un-pivots, and re-pivots now? But I’m also skeptical of the “Trump is Putin’s errand boy” narrative, which I think underestimates Trump’s exclusive loyalty to one person only (one Donald J. Trump) as well as his toddler-like volatility and short attention span. Trump does have a temperamental affinity with Putin (they share an authoritarian style and a penchant for crude jokes and insults, if nothing else), but his view of Russia and Ukraine at any given moment is also shaped by the war’s winner-loser dynamics as he perceives them; by optics (especially the bad optics of too many dead civilians and the even worse optics of dead children); by the opinion of the last person with whom he had a friendly chat; and by his own perception of America’s business interests (e.g., boosting U.S. energy sales at Russia’s expense). What’s more, some of Trump’s actions—such as quietly authorizing Ukraine to strike Russia with U.S.-supplied long-range missiles, or toughening sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas giants and their international customers—cannot quite be explained in the framework of U.S. subservience to Russia. The latest sanctions, for instance, have not been nearly as toothless as O’Brien has argued: Russian oil and gas sales really have been cratering.
BETWEEN RUSSIA’S AGGRESSIVE PUSH in Eastern Ukraine and political tensions in Kyiv in the wake of corruption scandals involving close associates of Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine is in a more vulnerable position than at any time in recent months. This would certainly seem to make Ukrainian leadership more likely to yield to pressure to sign on to a bad peace deal.
But is such a peace deal really in the works?
Within hours of the peace plan reveal, both the Kremlin and the Trump administration moved to deny the story. The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that no U.S. proposals have been “communicated through the established diplomatic channels.” While the White House has issued no official denial, the Kyiv Post reports that “one senior U.S. official told, speaking on background, brushed off the document as a ‘maximalist Kremlin fantasy.’” A tweet from Secretary of State Marco Rubio clearly signaled that no peace plan had been finalized and that the administration was still considering various ideas:
There was also a bizarre moment when Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff, widely mocked for his various blunders, replied to a tweet by Axios reporter Barak Ravid sharing the scoop with, “He must have got this from K”—and then deleted his own tweet (likely intended as a DM or a text message). “K” presumably refers to Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian economist and head of Russia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund who has emerged recently as a player in diplomatic efforts to end the war. It’s unclear how much influence Dmitriev has with the Trump administration; his visit to the United States in October was apparently a dud, and U.S. Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent publicly dismissed him on television as a “Russian propagandist.”
In a YouTube interview, expatriate Russian journalist Stanislav Kucher categorically asserted that the peace plan was a mirage and that, so far, there was no evidence of an imminent “American betrayal of Ukraine.” However, Kucher saw the “peace plan” leaks as “a serious attempt” to make such a betrayal happen at an already precarious moment for Ukraine”—an effort coming from “a segment of the American establishment . . . that wants Ukraine’s capitulation.” Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Portnikov has likewise dismissed the reports about a peace plan as an attempt to give political weight to “meaningless babble” from Witkoff and Dmitriev.
There are other indications that peace talks based on a Russia-friendly plan are not about to happen. Russia’s continuing escalation of bombings in Ukraine, including a horrific drone attack on the city of Ternopil on Tuesday night that killed twenty-five people, suggests that Putin is still intent on crushing Ukraine (and is unconcerned about Trump’s oft-expressed view that such bombings are an obstacle to peace). Meanwhile, Witkoff did not attend Wednesday’s meeting between Zelensky and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—where earlier reports had said he would join in the negotiations.
It is finally worth noting that if Zelensky is in a politically vulnerable position right now, so is Trump, who has faced open rebellion in usually servile GOP ranks over the Epstein files. Today, an attempt to throw Ukraine under the bus could well result in a (political) revolt from the pro-Ukraine Republican faction on Capitol Hill. The White House rush to distance itself from the chatter about a “peace plan” may be simple “damage control” or even a “walkback,” as veteran U.S. diplomat Daniel Fried told the Kyiv Post. If so, this suggests that the administration may not want to antagonize Ukraine’s supporters—and that pro-Ukraine forces would be wise to keep up the pressure.
Cathy Young is exceptional at wading through what is otherwise incoherence.
This plan is disgusting! It has absolutely NOTHING to do with "peace" and EVERYTHING to do with "surrender"!!!!
I hope Europe and the rest of the democratic world see this for what it is AND do everything possible to help Ukraine save itself from both Russia and Trump!!!!!!!!