Putin is still pulling Trump’s puppet strings with a new Ukraine ‘peace’ plan – but they can be cut
He let the performance play out. Donald Trump would give the impression of independence from the Kremlin, threatening sanctions on Russian fuel importers and muttering insults, but in the end Vladimir Putin has snapped the puppet strings tight and the US president is again dancing the Moscow jig.
It is a desperate but effective move from Moscow to dominate the terms of discussion over a war Russia cannot win.
According to a 28-point plan for peace in Ukraine briefed to the media on Wednesday, the US and Russia have agreed that Kyiv should give up a vast tract of the east of the country, halve its army, abandon its constitutionally mandated Nato membership application, and give up any weapons that could be used in its future defence.
Immediately rejected by President Volodymyr Zelensky the plan is identical to the Russian-centric American plans of the past and makes no account of the persistent refusal of Putin to accept the offer, from Ukraine, of an immediate ceasefire.
It is entirely based on the false premise that Ukraine cannot win its defensive war against Russia. That sooner or later concessions are inevitable.
Trump has contributed enthusiastically to the Russian war effort by entirely cutting all aid to Ukraine aside from intelligence support.
This means that Ukraine is not winning. But neither is Russia.
Kyiv is currently under nightly bombardment as part of a Russian campaign to cripple its energy sector and make the nation unliveable in winter for its civilian population. Ukraine is on the back foot tactically in Pokrovsk – but in Kupiansk, further north, the flow of war, locally, is going its way.
A Russian conquest of Ukraine could take a century and millions of men. Russia has already squandered over a million in dead and wounded since 2022.
The European and Canadian members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have stepped in to meet the shortfall of US funding for Ukraine with about €250 billion.
If America had not cut the supply of weapons then Ukraine would be better off and may have been able to break the spine of Russia’s army in Ukraine and force the kind of retreat it won when Moscow’s forces turned tail in the summer of 2022.
But Trump weakened Ukraine and then demanded that Kyiv accept Russian terms of either a ceasefire or long-term peace. He famously tried to bully Zelensky in the Oval Office, telling him he had no cards to play.
Ukraine is currently reeling from a corruption scandal involving the alleged theft of $100 million from its state energy company. Two ministers have been forced from office, while other characters close to Zelensky have fled the country.
Zelensky has made a hash of conscription in Ukraine too. There are unofficial estimates circulating in Ukraine’s parliament that draft dodgers outnumber soldiers in Kyiv by a million.
