FLASH
Shkruar nga Dominic Waghorn
“Terrible,” “strange,” “strange,” “astonishing.” These are some of the adjectives being used by observers of the Trump administration’s peace plan for Ukraine. The 28-point proposal was drafted between Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff and Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev, without the involvement of Europe and Ukraine.
In fact, it disguises Russian demands as a peace proposal, demands first made by Russia at the height of its invasion in 2022, before defeats forced it to withdraw from most of Ukraine.
-Her proposals are not successful for Ukrainians.
It would hand over the rest of Donbas, territory they have spent almost four years and lost tens of thousands of men defending. Analysts estimate that at the current rate of advance, it would take Russia another four years to take the land it is proposing to simply give them. It proposes to more than halve the size of the Ukrainian army and deprive it of some of its most effective long-range weapons. And it would ban any foreign forces from acting as peacekeepers in Ukraine after any peace deal is reached.
-By putting pressure on Zelensky
The plan comes at a difficult time for Ukrainians. They are being hit by devastating drone strikes, killing dozens in recent nights alone. They are on the verge of losing a key stronghold city, Pokrovsk. And Zelensky is embroiled in his worst political crisis since the start of the war, with key officials facing damaging corruption charges.
The suspicion is that Witkoff and Dmitriev conspired together to choose this moment to put even more pressure on the Ukrainian president. Yet, oddly enough, it may help him. In Kiev, there has been universal condemnation and outrage at the Witkoff-Dmitriev plan. Rivals have little choice but to rally around Ukraine’s wartime leader as he faces such unreasonable demands.
-Impact of Trump's departure
The genesis of this plan is unclear. Was it born of Donald Trump's exaggerated confidence in his peacekeeping skills? His overhyped Gaza ceasefire plan drew widespread praise from world leaders, but now appears to be mired in increasing difficulty.
The fear is that Trump’s team is finding ways to allow him to walk away from this conflict altogether, blaming Ukrainian stubbornness for the failure of his diplomacy. Trump has already ended financial support for Ukraine, acting instead as an arms dealer, selling weapons to Europe to pass on to the occupied democracy.
If he were to remove even military intelligence support, Ukraine would be blind to the kind of attacks that have killed dozens of civilians in recent days.
Europe and Ukraine cannot reject the plan outright and risk antagonizing Trump. They will be playing for time and hope against all evidence that he can still be persuaded to abandon the Kremlin and pressure Putin to end the war, rather than force Ukraine to surrender./ SkyNews
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