Trump Demands Ukrainian Surrender

The Final Punchline of a Failed Negotiation Process

The prospect of a diplomatic settlement to the War in Ukraine has eluded Trump since the start of his second term. After weeks of negotiations with Russian and Ukrainian policymakers, the White House has unveiled what would appear to be its final conditions for a peace process in Ukraine.

Simply put, the Trump administration is pushing a plan of Ukrainian surrender.

According to descriptions of the one-page proposal presented by the White House to the governments of Russia and Ukraine, the American vision for ending the War in Ukraine begins with freezing the conflict along the current line of contact between both countries. The United States would recognize the legitimacy of the 2014 annexation of Crimea, as well as Russia’s occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk and current holdings in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Additionally, future Ukrainian membership in NATO would be ruled out, and sanctions levied against Russia from the 2014 annexation of Crimea to the present would be lifted. In exchange for these many concessions, Ukraine would receive a few square kilometers of land in Kharkiv and a vague promise of "security assurances” by third parties. However, American participation in post-war peacekeeping operations has already been ruled out.

This is a disaster that exemplifies how out of depth Trump and his people are when it comes to dealing with Russia. The conditions of this peace agreement are nearly indistinguishable from the maximalist demands laid out by the Russian government in the war's opening weeks. The only Russian demand missing from this proposal is the removal of President Zelenskyy, which would be all but guaranteed if Ukraine were to accept a settlement that includes recognizing Crimea and eastern Ukraine as Russian territory. Additionally, the lifting of sanctions sends the message that there is no punishment for revisionist military expansion.

Throughout the months-long fool’s errand of negotiating with the Russian government, representatives like Witkoff and Kellogg failed to gain any meaningful leverage against Russian maximalist demands and directed all of their pressure towards Ukraine. The only conclusion that I can take away from this debacle is that the diplomatic wing of the administration is so hyperfixated on a quick win that they’re willing to accept Ukrainian defeat. Furthermore, the plan includes an immediate non-starter for Ukraine with the recognition of the annexation of Crimea. This suggests that the American negotiation team has made no effort to consider Ukrainian interests in this negotiation strategy.

Earlier this week, Secretary of State Rubio threatened that the United States would “walk away” from further negotiations between Russia and Ukraine if the proposed terms were not accepted. Rubio essentially decided to throw his hands in the air and accept Russia’s terms while trying to present the United States as a detached, neutral mediator. What’s especially jarring about this proposed agreement is that Rubio was a proponent of non-recognition towards Russia’s annexation of Crimea and a vocal supporter of Ukraine at the start of the war. After years of service trying to defeat authoritarianism abroad, Rubio now advances the interests of authoritarianism at home. Having shown the world his two-faced approach to Ukraine, Rubio has become a modern Neville Chamberlain whose legacy will forever be defined by his eagerness to deliver terms of surrender to our ally on behalf of someone who spent months mocking him on national television. I hope it was worth it, Marco; it only cost you your backbone and dignity.

Trump and Vance have taken every opportunity to parrot Russian narratives on the war in Ukraine and draw false equivalences between Russian aggression and Ukrainian self-defense. After studying the past 30 years of American-Russian relations, I think this peace proposal reflects Donald Trump’s overtly malicious strategy towards fostering better relations with Putin. Trump is not only abandoning Zelenskyy and the American-Ukrainian partnership but also actively sabotaging Ukraine’s defense. Just hours after the release of this proposed settlement, Russia struck cities across Ukraine in one of the largest missile barrages since the start of the war. The sequence of these events, in addition to the United States’s refusal to authorize Kyiv’s purchase of American air defense systems and opposition to Germany providing security aid to Ukraine, suggests that Trump is now actively trying to compromise Ukraine’s defense and bring Zelenskyy to defeat. This policy direction doesn’t come from a place of ignorance – it comes from a place of evil.

The rest of the world sees this proposal for what it is: the sudden abandonment of our ally in exchange for a false promise of peace. As a member of the National Security Council, I helped draft the “Crimea Declaration,” a policy that formally rejected the 2014 annexation of Crimea. The Crimea Declaration was modeled on the Welles Declaration, a policy drafted in 1940 when the United States took the position that Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were not constituent republics of the Soviet Union but instead temporarily occupied independent countries. It took 51 years for the Soviet Union to collapse, but the vision of the free Baltic states outlined by the Welles Declaration eventually became a reality. The Crimea Declaration is not idealistic or ideological – it’s an effective practice of diplomacy designed to achieve an ideal outcome for the United States and the world as a whole. The second Trump administration’s recognition of Russia’s illegal seizure and annexation of Crimea is a rejection of the principles that governed his first term and an ideological rejection of American values and ideals. Trump’s second term is an embrace of the same predatory international relations theory that previously resulted in two world wars. This position will not make America safer or wealthier; instead, it will make the world a more dangerous place and put American troops at risk. Trump is responsible. Trump’s Republican enablers, failing to challenge the worst instincts of Trump, share responsibility and will have American blood on their hands.