Trump's profitable peace, Russian realism and European bluster

US President Donald Trump is beginning to acknowledge the reality of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The White House's latest peace proposal is also the first realistic one. It does not satisfy Russia, it does not please Europe, it scares Ukraine and it leaves the Americans with a decent earner. Mostly, however, no one is happy about the compromise.

Woe to the losers... Ukrainians and Europeans

The success or failure of Trump's plan will not primarily be decided by Ukraine or Europe. Ukraine is dependent on the US and is losing. Europe continues to sink further into its own fantasies. It depends on Russia, which is winning, but slowly and expensively.

The plan is in Russia's favour in every way, but even in its original version it contained points that were difficult to accept. After US Secretary of State Rubio's weekend Geneva talks with the Europeans and Ukrainians, more are likely to be added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will appreciate that the US wants to negotiate with Russia on security issues, at several levels at once: Russia-US, Russia-NATO and Russia-US-Europe-Ukraine. In the economic sphere, the Americans offer the lifting of sanctions, Russia's return to the G7 and, in the normal economic relations, bilateral economic cooperation in energy, natural resources, artificial intelligence, the use of the Arctic and other areas.

Breaking economic isolation will come in handy for Russia, both for purely economic reasons and to strengthen Russia's position in the strategic but complicated partnership with China.

What lies ahead for Ukraine

As for Ukraine itself, the plan reflects Russian demands for demilitarisation, denationalisation and respect for Russian-speaking Ukrainians. It rules out Ukraine's entry into NATO and its further expansion or the actual presence of NATO troops in Ukraine. This brings down one of the triggers of the current war.

It further limits the Ukrainian army to a maximum of 600 000 soldiers, prohibits Ukraine from developing nuclear weapons and makes Western security guarantees conditional on Ukraine not committing aggression. At the same time, Kiev is to commit itself to European standards of minority rights and the fight against Nazi ideology. In return, Russia is to refrain from further aggression and, failing that, to count on a European response from air bases in Poland.

Trump is prepared to recognise the expansion of Russian territory not only to include Crimea but also the Luhansk or Donetsk regions, which Putin has so far failed to fully conquer militarily. What remains open, however, is the status of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions, which Russia considers an integral part of its territory but has not advanced militarily there as significantly as it has in the Donbas. The plan envisages a freeze of the status quo and subsequent negotiations. This is advantageous for Ukraine, because it is losing more territory every week.

Russian-American business first

Russia is to withdraw from all territories outside the above-mentioned area, i.e. from the territory it controls in the Sumy, Dnepropetrovsk or Kharkiv regions. This does not suit Russia. If it does not want to use these territories as border buffers, it would like to swap them for the western parts of Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

There is a Russian-speaking population there, and both have been constitutionally incorporated into the Russian Federation. Russia will find it difficult to accept that, despite its military superiority, it should not completely acquire the entire territory of both areas. It will demand that the US treat them in the same way as the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

An agreement on frozen Russian assets in the West may be somewhat easier. This is about business. The Americans want to use the hundred billion for their own projects in Ukraine, claiming half of the proceeds. The rest of the assets seized in the US are to go to Russian-American projects to be decided jointly.

In doing so, the US is blatantly talking about the price of mediating the end of a war that it helped provoke. However, if the Russians do not recognise the US takeover of Russian assets, they will put the US in the position of a country that does not respect the basic rules of the international financial system. A country that wants to remain an international financial centre for some time to come cannot afford such a thing. So there is something to negotiate.

Europe will pay, amnesties will come in handy for Zelensky and the Russians

The Americans are not so generous to their European allies. Russian funds frozen by Europe are to be returned. This would relieve Belgium, under whose jurisdiction these assets are and which, fearing arbitration, is resisting Brussels' pressure to seize them.

In addition, the Europeans are to supply an extra hundred billion from their own pockets for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Russia would not necessarily mind an amnesty on all sides for everything that happened during the war. Although Russia would like to try the 'bander' crimes, without amnesty the Russians themselves would be exposed to Ukrainian, European and international courts. President Putin will be better able to travel after the amnesty.

President Zelensky will not be hindered by the amnesty either. He, too, would certainly like to punish Russian war crimes, but he will have more peace of mind in exile if his own corruption is also covered.

Indeed, Trump's plan calls for elections in Ukraine within a hundred days of the signing of peace. It is hard to imagine that Zelensky could defend or even vindicate himself. After the Americans unleashed their anti-corruption hounds on him two weeks ago, and with Ukraine's anti-corruption agency on long-term guard, he can only hope for amnesty and exile.

Polish guarantees for Ukraine and the Dnieper as a border river?

Otherwise, there is not much in Trump's plan for Ukraine. It can say goodbye to NATO membership and a fifth of its territory, plus it has to comply with conditions corresponding to Russian demands.

What will the security guarantees look like? That needs to be clarified. For the time being, there is talk of Russia attacking, facing sanctions and, most recently, a 'coordinated military' response, presumably from Polish bases.

The guarantees include Russia's obligation to allow Ukraine to navigate the Dnieper and to export grain via the Black Sea. This reminds Kiev of the uncomfortable fact that after the war the Dnieper will be partly a border river.

Similarly, the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which was Ukrainian before the war, is now fully under Russian control and, according to the plan on the table, would supply half of its output to Russia and half to Ukraine. At the same time, Trump is clear that Kiev will pay the Americans for the guarantees - apparently as insurance.

European objections are out of touch with reality

When the plan mentions Ukraine's reconstruction, it is clear that the money will come from somewhere other than the US budget: from frozen Russian assets, from Europe, from the World Bank. At the same time, Trump is recommending that Ukraine join the EU and be given preferential access to the European market until that happens. When it comes to the resources of others, Americans can be quite generous. But delivering on such promises is no longer in Washington's power.

European leaders do not like Trump's plan, for reasons both good and bad. Among the former is the fact that Europe does not admit that it has to pay for everything. Poland, for its part, is not happy that it is being designated, without being asked, as a major base and therefore a target in the event of another war. Ukraine's entry into the EU or access to the European market for its products is also highly controversial on the Polish political scene.

Otherwise, Europe's objections only show how far it is from reality. Ukraine will supposedly be too weak to defend itself against possible Russian aggression as a result of the restrictions. However, it will always be too weak for such a thing because of its fundamental asymmetry towards Russia. Moreover, it will be considerably weaker now than it might have been had it not allowed itself to be manoeuvred by the West into a prematurely lost war with Russia.

To argue that a ceiling of 600 thousand troops is too low, and to suggest 800 thousand is completely out of touch with reality. The three European 'superpowers' that are coming up with this - Germany, France and the UK - do not even have 600 thousand troops in total. And each of them is demographically and economically somewhere completely different from Ukraine.

At the same time, European leaders do not take into account that it is not in their interest to have an over-armed state in the east that is at the same time institutionally weak and prone to extremist ideologies. It is therefore difficult to imagine that Sunday's Geneva talks with the Europeans will move the Trump plan in the direction of a realistic peace.

Bankrupts living in their own fictional world

Nor does anyone in Washington like the plan. Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg, is leaving the Trump team. This representative of the American deep state has been pulling the strings from the beginning when the really substantive issues around Ukraine, including the current peace plan, were left to others, most notably Trump confidant Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

It wasn't just the Europeans to whom Vice President J.D. Vance's recent rebuke was directed: "Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in their own fictional world."

But in what world does Secretary of State Marco Rubio live, who was so at ease with the Europeans in Geneva? Judging by his past performances, Rubio is not one of the "reasonable people living in our real world" who, according to the vice president, can ensure peace.