Ukraine gives up land in Trump’s peace
Former president’s proposal would reverse Biden policy
Former President Donald Trump has privately said he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up some territory, according to people familiar with the plan. Some foreign policy experts said Trump’s idea would reward Russian President Vladimir Putin and condone the violation of internationally recognized borders by force.
Trump’s proposal consists of pushing Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia, according to people who discussed it with Trump or his advisers and spoke on the condition of anonymity because those conversations were confidential. That approach, which has not been previously reported, would dramatically reverse President Joe Biden’s policy, which has emphasized curtailing Russian aggression and providing military aid to Ukraine.
Time to make a deal
As he seeks a return to power, the presumptive Republican nominee has frequently boasted that he could negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours if elected, even before taking office. But he has repeatedly declined to specify publicly how he would quickly settle a war that has raged for more than two years and killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
Trump-aligned foreign-policy thinkers have emphasized addressing threats to U.S. interests from China and seeking ways to reverse Russia’s increasing dependence on China for military, industrial and economic assistance. They have also embraced limiting NATO expansion.
Privately, Trump has said that he thinks both Russia and Ukraine “want to save face, they want a way out,” and that people in parts of Ukraine would be OK with being part of Russia, according to a person who has discussed the matter directly with Trump.
Accepting Russian control over parts of Ukraine would expand the reach of Putin’s dictatorship after what has been the biggest land war in Europe since World War II. Some of Trump’s supporters have been trying to persuade him against such an outcome.
“I’ve been spending 100 percent of my time talking to Trump about Ukraine,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a onetime Trump critic turned ally. “He has to pay a price. He can’t win at the end of this,” Graham added, speaking of Putin.
Russia has previously declared it was annexing Ukrainian land beyond the Donbas region and Crimea and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said he would not accept surrendering any territory. Exchanging territory for a cease-fire would put Ukraine in a worse position without assurances that Russia would not rearm and resume hostilities, as it has in the past, said Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank. “That is a terrible deal,” she said of Trump’s proposal.
The Trump campaign declined to directly address questions for this article. “Any speculation about President Trump’s plan is coming from unnamed and uninformed sources who have no idea what is going on or what will happen,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.”President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing.”
Biden said in his State of the Union address that Putin is “on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond,” and that Ukraine is trying to defend itself. The president has outlined a long-term plan of support for Ukraine that would build up its military capabilities this year so that it is in a better place to go on the offensive next year. But U.S. aid is already in jeopardy as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., faces a revolt from Republican hard-liners who are digging in against any more funding and clamoring to oust him.
Out of office, Trump has pressured congressional Republicans to resist additional American support for Ukraine’s war effort and a return to the White House would significantly expand his influence over the debate. Seeing the political dynamics in the U.S., European allies have jump-started military industry to a point where they hope to supplant a significant portion of the current U.S. assistance to Kyiv. But analysts said that realistically, Ukraine’s capacity to keep fighting would be weakened if Trump succeeds in blocking further U.S. aid.
In many ways, Trump’s plan is in line with his approach as president. His preference for splashy summits over policy details, confidence in his own negotiating skills and impatience with conventional diplomatic protocols were all hallmarks of how he approached foreign affairs in his first term.
In his eight years as the GOP’s standard-bearer, Trump has led a stark shift in the party’s prevailing orientation to become more skeptical of foreign intervention such as military aid to Ukraine. Trump has consistently complimented Putin, expressed admiration for his dictatorial rule and gone out of his way to avoid criticizing him, most recently for the death in jail of political opponent Alexei Navalny. He has not called for the release of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter held in Russia for a year without charges or a trial.
Trump has refused to acknowledge Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and falsely blamed Ukraine for trying to help Democratic rival Hillary Clinton — a smear spread by Russian spy services. His attempt in 2019 to withhold aid to Ukraine unless Zelenskyy announced an investigation into Biden led to Trump’s first impeachment.
In a phone call with Zelenskyy that year that Trump said was “perfect,” the U.S. president pressured Zelenskyy to investigate Biden and the discredited theory that Ukraine and not Russia sought to interfere with the 2016 election. The GOP-controlled Senate later acquitted Trump.
“Former President Trump’s inexplicable and admiring relationship with Putin, along with his unprecedented hostility to NATO, cannot give Europe or Ukraine any confidence in his dealings with Russia,” said Tom Donilon, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser. “Trump’s comments encouraging Russia to do whatever it wants with our European allies are among the most unsettling and dangerous statements made by a major party candidate for president. His position represents a clear and present danger to U.S. and European security.”
Graham said he has warned against giving Russia desired land and wants Trump to embrace a pathway forward to Ukraine to join NATO.
“The way you end this war to me is you make sure Ukraine gets into NATO and the E.U.,” he said. “He doesn’t say much about that. I don’t know if he’s thought too much about it.”
In his public promises to end the war, Trump has pointedly withheld the specifics on how he would negotiate with Putin and Zelenskyy. “I will say certain things to each one of them that I wouldn’t say to the rest of the world, and that’s why I can’t tell you much more than that,” Trump said in a March interview.
His public silence on his negotiating tack has left room for others to fill in the blanks. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has antagonized European allies with his autocratic tendencies, met with Trump last month and afterward claimed Trump told him he will force the war to end because “he will not give a penny” to help Ukraine. Orban’s statement was false, but Trump didn’t want to publicly contradict him after entertaining him all night at his Mar-a-Lago Club and admiring his toughness and anti-immigration positions, according to a person close to Trump, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.