It’s been a confusing and dispiriting couple of days for the administration’s 28-point proposal to end the Russo-Ukrainian war. Who wrote it? Was it really a nonnegotiable demand on Ukraine? Now, there’s word that the U.S. and Ukraine have been working cooperatively on changes. That doesn’t make the original plan any better, but it suggests, one hopes, it’s a starting point rather than an inevitable destination.
The original plan tilts heavily toward Russia, and, worse, there are signs that some of its clumsier passages were crude, cut-and-paste translations from the original Russian. Impressions of a Russo-American diktat have been reinforced by the (since retracted) insistence that its terms were final, the imposition of a ludicrously tight deadline, and President Trump’s petulant grumbling on Truth Social about Ukrainian “ingratitude.”
What the president may have seen as necessary toughness struck many as a display of both weakness and naïveté. Vladimir Putin has repeatedly played Trump for a fool, and it’s his goal to keep doing so.
Regarding the 28 points, the first — that Ukraine’s sovereignty will be “confirmed” — is worth one cheer, but falls well short of the standard set in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Back then, Russia agreed “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” (our emphasis). That promise died in the Donbas and Crimea in 2014. To restate that pledge, if only partially, would be a start, but not a reassuring one.
Ukraine must now realize that treaties count for less than force. Despite the remarkable efforts of the Ukrainian military, Russia is using its superior resources (and behind them, those of China) to grind Ukraine down. With the Kremlin’s grip secure at home, Russia is not going to lose this war on anything like the current trajectory, nor will it, with extremely limited exceptions, give up any of the territory that it has conquered. We wish it were otherwise, but it is not. The only question now for Kyiv has to be the preservation of the independence of what is left (the rival European plan would be a far better option to achieve that end, but there is no chance that Russia would accept it).
The backdrop of all the diplomacy should be the recognition that Russia’s promises are worthless. As the last decade has shown, the financial “incentives” for its good behavior would make no difference if the Kremlin decided that a renewed onslaught on Ukraine would be in Russia’s national interest. Moreover, many of the 28 points are so broad that, even if incorporated in a properly drafted treaty, it would be easy enough for Russia to claim some breach and go back on the offensive.
All that said, there may be enough in the initial document to work toward a deal that could be the basis of a sustainable armistice, which, in the most optimistic scenario, may be afoot now.
For example, one of its proposals is that the size of Ukraine’s miliary should be capped. That’s insulting, but bearable, although the proposed number (600,000) is too low. Currently, Ukraine has around 900,000 active-duty personnel. That should be the lowest acceptable limit.
Then there is a requirement that Ukraine should not join NATO. While there is no chance that Ukraine will join NATO any time soon, a fully sovereign Ukraine should be able to ally with whomever it wants. A period of, say, five years in which it agrees to suspend its current application ought to be acceptable.
The provision that NATO troops should not be stationed in Ukraine is tolerable, so long as it is clear that the prohibition only covers permanent bases. It would be worth floating the idea that similar limits should apply to the stationing of Russian troops in Belarus.
The recognition that “European fighter jets” may be stationed in Poland (they already are) must not be read as excluding U.S. planes — there can be no second-class citizens within NATO.
Meanwhile, the agreement that Ukraine is free to join the EU ought to be unnecessary if Ukrainian sovereignty is to mean anything, but this provision is nevertheless welcome.
And then there are the territorial issues. De facto recognition (including by the U.S.) of the Russian occupation of Crimea and the Luhansk Oblast is an unpleasant acknowledgement of reality, as is de facto recognition of the “border” established by the front line in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russia is prepared to withdraw from other Ukrainian territory it has seized, with the exception of the Donetsk Oblast. There, it wants de facto recognition of what it has already taken, which is, under these bleak circumstances, acceptable. But the surrender to Moscow of those parts of the oblast — a key defensive line — that Russia has not taken and their establishment as a Russian “DMV” is not. The Ukrainian fortifications block the most likely route that Russia would take in any renewed attempt to subdue Ukraine.
We hope further negotiations are addressing the points above, but not only those. There’s the issue of spelling out what point five (“Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees”) is to mean. Unless those guarantees are truly “reliable,” no armistice will last for long. The best chance of persuading Moscow to accept them will be for the administration to be clear that, in the absence of an agreement, it will continue to support Ukraine’s fight for self-determination.
The alternative of pressing for a pseudo peace acceptable in practice only to Moscow would likely be a catastrophe with consequences that would be felt well beyond Ukraine, and not just in Europe. Xi will be watching and taking notes, and so will the governments of many other countries, weighing which way to leap as the world divides into two camps. And those governments may include some currently aligned with the U.S. who might well conclude that they should at least start hedging their bets.
That would not be in their interests, and it would not be in ours either.