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According to all reports, Washington has told Kyiv that Ukraine is to sign on to the mislabeled “Peace Plan” by Thanksgiving. In what world does a forced Ukrainian capitulation and the rewarding of a crumbling Russia for its war crimes and genocide lead to a “thanksgiving” except for international thugs and terrorists?
The “plan”, a product of Washington and Russia without Ukraine or any other impacted country, is an embarrassment at best – the United States siding with an international war criminal.
Unprovoked, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and, in addition to military operations, has murdered, raped, and tortured the people of Ukraine ever since. It has and is abducting Ukraine’s children, targeting civilians, their schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, churches, and conducting an extraordinary worldwide propaganda campaign denying and justifying its demonic behavior.
Yet the “plan” being pushed on Ukraine includes no provisions that require Russia to make any concessions. No, instead it would subjugate the victim and reward Russia by accepting Russian demands that would set conditions for renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine and its other European targets.
If this “peace” plan was a proposed Hollywood script, it would be thrown in the trash as preposterous. And this plan must be rejected.
Where is Congress?
Putin was losing badly. Now he can’t believe his luck
Leaked proposals for peace in Ukraine are an extraordinary victory for the Kremlin and Xi Jinping. What is Donald Trump playing at?
20 November 2025 7:22pm GMT
The newly leaked 28-point “peace framework” for Ukraine reads less like diplomacy and more like dictated surrender. Russia’s seizure of Crimea would be formally recognised and Kyiv would have to surrender other occupied regions, slash the size of its army, and also give up all long-range weapons. In other words, the one country that has not invaded anyone is to be disarmed as if it were the threat, while the serial aggressor keeps its conquests.
On top of that, leaked versions speak of halting most US military aid, recognising Russian as a Ukrainian state language, and granting official status to the Moscow-linked Orthodox Church – all classic levers of influence for the Kremlin inside Ukraine. The package looks less like a balanced bargain than a Kremlin wish-list laundered through Washington.
For anyone who remembers the 1994 Budapest Memorandum – under which the US, the UK and Russia gave Ukraine security assurances in exchange for its nuclear arsenal – this represents a remarkable U-turn. Those assurances included respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders, and a pledge to refrain from the threat or use of force against it. Today, instead of upholding those commitments, two of the original signatories are effectively asking Kyiv to ratify its own dismemberment. International assurances and treaties can mean little or nothing once the signatories decide it is no longer in their interest to comply.
Strategically, the timing is even stranger. Behind the façade of “fortress Russia”, the war and sanctions have pushed Moscow into stagnation: growth forecasts have collapsed, reserves are being run down, labour shortages are biting, and the public appears to be tiring of the war. So the war economy is brittle and the main “strategy” of the regime seems to be to outlast Western patience.
In other words, Putin is not dictating from a position of strength, but from a corner that he has painted himself into: economically strained, demographically weakened, dependent on China, and trapped in a costly war he cannot afford to lose but does not know how to win. For the West, it should be a no-brainer: keep helping Ukraine push back the Russian army and maintain pressure on Moscow, rather than rewarding Putin with territory and a neutered Ukraine.
Trump is often accused of “transactionalism”, as if he is alone among world leaders in seeking a good bargain for his country. In reality, however, almost every head of government is transactional most of the time; that is part of the job description. They would be failing their countries if they were not. The traditional way is simply to pretend that it is not happening. From that perspective, the Trumpian method is at times – believe it or not – more honest: he says the quiet part out loud.
Where he oversteps is in treating deals with despotic thugs much like deals with democratic allies. Team Putin is not just another counterparty. Treating him as one is not only morally unsavoury, it is bad business for the United States. It also hands Trump’s critics in Europe an excuse to distance themselves from Washington just when the US president had an opening to do the opposite. He had enormous latent goodwill among those Europeans who have welcomed a challenge to progressive groupthink and moralism. By misplaying his Ukraine card – apparently driven by a fixation on a Ukrainian mineral deal – he is squandering much of that capital.
The stage was set for Trump to be the Reagan of our time: a champion not only of regained economic freedom, but of the democracy that underpins any functioning market economy. A clear, sustained effort to help Ukraine push back Russia would have sent a powerful signal that America still takes its role as leader of the free world seriously and that challenging the rules comes at a cost. And it could have been done at a fraction of what Reagan had to spend to win the Cold War.
Russia today is a shadow of the Soviet empire of the 1980s; the marginal cost of reinforcing the lesson that aggression does not pay has rarely been lower. A firm tone from the outset, combined with an early green light for long-range Ukrainian strikes into Russia, could have been transformative. Putin would have understood that digging in was not a winning option. [Author terribly understates the situation by reference to lack of “firm tone”. For over eleven years now, Washington and the West have deprived Ukraine of what was known to be needed to repulse the Russian invasion, and what has been provided has routinely been too little, too late. And hypocritically, Washington has pretended to much more than it has, for example, by gaining headlines by announcing approval to provide this-or-that weapons system, which is then never delivered, or delivered in far smaller quantities than announced. RAM]
Instead, Washington now flirts with a settlement that effectively aligns US policy with key Kremlin preferences at the expense of a democratic ally, European security – and, by extension, Pacific security. For Taipei and Beijing alike, Ukraine has always been a test case. The way the West responds to Russian aggression will shape Xi Jinping’s calculus on Taiwan.
If a declining power like Russia, led by a regime struggling badly, can launch a war of conquest, seize swathes of a neighbour’s territory, and ultimately secure a US-blessed recognition of its gains, the message is stark: nuclear-armed revisionists can distract from their problems at home by starting a war, redraw borders by force, and end up rewarded.
Combine that with Trump’s narrow version of transactionalism – fixated on immediate payments, resources or trade concessions in return for security guarantees, while discounting wider strategic and moral costs – and it is not hard to see how Beijing might read the signal. Why even wait to launch China’s own war of aggression if today’s White House has already shown it is willing to trade away the interests of smaller allies? Just put a sufficiently attractive semiconductor and investment package on the table and test whether Washington’s resolve over Taiwan is any firmer than over Ukraine.
Sure, Ukraine is not in a happy place, now also tainted by a major corruption scandal. [Excuse my conspiratorial worry, but the corruption and disgraces embedded in post-Soviet systems, including Ukraine, have not been attacked sufficiently despite campaign promises, but is the timing of the latest exposures a coincidence? RAM] Given that the US and Europe remain unwilling to provide the support needed to halt further Russian advances, freezing the conflict might, admittedly, be the least bad option, buying time for the eventual collapse of the Russian regime. [I refuse to think freezing the conflict is the least bad option. RAM] But certainly not if it is combined with forced Ukrainian disarmament and reduced sanctions on Russia (the latter is likely, even if not yet visible in the leaks). What would then stop the Putin regime from licking its wounds and launching a third invasion? US and European security assurances? That did not work particularly well last time.
A “peace deal” that betrays the spirit of Budapest, rewards and even props up a battered aggressor at a critical moment, while openly broadcasting Western irresolution would be a gift to every authoritarian gambler studying the West, from the Donbas to the Taiwan Strait. It would also squander a historic chance to show that aggression does not pay. That alone is reason to treat this leaked proposal, if genuine, not as a diplomatic breakthrough, but as a strategic and moral blunder, and a missed opportunity, of epic proportions.
Mark Brolin is a geopolitical strategist and the author of ’Healing Broken Democracies: All You Need to Know About Populism’
ROBERT MCCONNELL
Co-Founder, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation
Director of External Affairs, Friends of Ukraine Network
The introduction and parenthetical comments are Mr. McConnell’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation or the Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN).