OPINION:
President Trump is a master multitasker. Still, while he was busy dining and dealmaking with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia last week, I doubt he had time to carefully examine the 28-point “peace” plan drafted by Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, and Kirill Dmitriev, de facto special envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Trump initially appeared to endorse the plan, calling Thanksgiving “an appropriate time” for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to it.
Over the weekend, however, American and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva to revise the plan, where, according to a joint White House-Ukraine statement, they made “meaningful progress.”
On Sunday, Marco Rubio, who serves as Mr. Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser, said the meeting had produced a “solid framework for ongoing negotiations,” one that reduces the plan from 28 points to 19. He added: “This is a living, breathing document. Every day, with input, it changes.”
He indicated that Mr. Trump had decided to be flexible regarding deadlines.
On Monday, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that “something good just may be happening.”
It will soon be four years since Mr. Putin’s military forces invaded Ukraine, not for the first time. Since then, Russian drones and missiles have rained down on hospitals, schools, churches, supermarkets and, lately, the energy systems needed for heating homes during the coming Ukrainian winter.
Mr. Trump has worked hard to persuade Mr. Putin to negotiate an end to the conflict. Mr. Putin has suggested he was in favor of that, but he has never begun a serious diplomatic process.
Back in April, Mr. Trump posted that continuing Russian strikes on “civilian areas, cities and towns” had caused him to consider that perhaps the Russian strongman “doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along.” That perception has since proved indisputably accurate.
On Monday, Mr. Putin said the 28-point plan could form the basis of a settlement. That came as no surprise because it required Ukrainians to surrender territory, slash their military and limit their alliances.
Accepting that Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian forces will be controlled by Moscow for the foreseeable future merely recognizes reality. The same is not true of the demand that Ukraine cede well-defended territories in its eastern Donbas region that Mr. Putin’s forces have not conquered, do not occupy and from which a future assault on Kyiv could be launched.
Among the other benefits the initial plan would have provided to Russia: the lifting of most sanctions and Russia’s reentry into what is currently the Group of Seven. That elite political forum had been the Group of Eight until Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014.
The members of the G7 — the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan — are democracies. In the past, it was possible to hope that Russia was evolving in that direction. Not anymore.
The plan also stated: “It is expected that Russia will not invade neighboring countries.” Expected by whom? Russia sliced two territories from Georgia in 2008.
The plan required Ukraine to cut its military from some 900,000 troops to 600,000 with no reciprocal limits on Russian force levels. You don’t need to be Carl von Clausewitz to understand the implications.
Also demanded: NATO “will not expand further.” The suggestion that NATO is expansionist or threatening is ludicrous.
Another point: “Russia will enshrine in law its policy of non-aggression towards Europe and Ukraine.”
Is this meant to be funny? Russian law is whatever Mr. Putin says it is on any given day.
One more point in the initial plan: “Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees” from the U.S. and its NATO allies. Yet a Russian attack on Ukraine would have to be “significant, deliberate, and sustained” to merit a response, the aim of which would be merely “to restore security.”
Plus, the guarantees would be voided if Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg “without cause.”
Recall how Moscow, in 1999, engineered an apartment bombing narrative to falsely justify launching a war in Chechnya, whose independence movement was soon crushed. Recall, too, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for an American and Russian guarantee that Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected.
A key strategic component that I’m confident Mr. Trump has by now considered: Xi Jinping would regard the abandonment of Ukraine as an echo of President Biden’s capitulation to the Taliban in Afghanistan. China’s ruler would then be justified to conclude that Taiwan is now his for the taking.
On Tuesday morning, the Kremlin rejected a European counterproposal to the 28-point peace plan, which is not the same as the 19-point working document negotiated by Mr. Rubio over the weekend. This suggests, however, that the road to an agreement is likely to be long and bumpy.
Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has said on numerous occasions that ending the war requires the elimination of its “root causes.”
Mr. Peskov never explains that term, so I will. In his 2005 state of the nation address, Mr. Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.
His mission, it should be obvious, is to restore what President Reagan called the “evil empire.” Ukraine would not be his last stop.
To that end, he has made common cause with the communists ruling China, the Islamists ruling Iran and the third-generation despot ruling North Korea — an ambitious axis of aggressors.
An America that is great again will not help Mr. Putin achieve his imperialist and anti-American ambitions.
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a columnist for The Washington Times and host of the “Foreign Podicy” podcast.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.