Trying the same thing over and over without success could be called insanity, depending on your point of view, or a Russian negotiation tactic.
President Donald Trump’s widely leaked draft 28-point plan is a terrible setback for Kiev. It was invented jointly by Russians who wanted to pretend they were working on peace, and propagated by Ukrainians and Europeans who felt it was extremely stupid to be sure to die on first contact with oxygen.
Much of the text is similar to the extremist position Russia displayed in Istanbul in 2022, when Russian forces seized control of much of Ukraine and the slow and severe military embarrassment of the past three years was still ahead of them. Before we dissect this document and its deep and dizzying benefits for the Kremlin in more detail, the timing of this new initiative, largely led by Moscow, is key.
The Russian military is probably in the best position it has been in over a year. It is weeks and even days away from capturing the military stronghold east of Pokrovsk, a highly important and strategic location that has been hotly contested since last summer. Their forces are on its southern tip, and if they were to capture it, they would encounter significant population centers to the west under Ukrainian control before approaching the capital, Kiev. The land is mostly flat and open, perfect for rapid advancement. Moscow also made breakthroughs throughout the Zaporizhzhia region, using armor to bring its troops dangerously close to the city of Zaporizhzhia and reoccupying open, flat territory that would remain vulnerable through the winter.
Ukraine continues to have high desertion and draft evasion rates, exacerbating serious manpower problems, and Kiev’s drone advantage is being eroded by Russia’s quick learning and innovation. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is also suffering from the rock bottom of his popularity and is facing the fallout from an ongoing detailed corruption scandal that affects both his inner circle and the very energy outages that Ukrainians have to endure on a daily basis.
Russia’s initiative is clearly aimed at exploiting a moment of perhaps unprecedented vulnerability in Ukraine, where the domestic political crisis threatens to undermine President Zelenskiy’s ability to confront front-line emergencies. The frightening timing for Kiev may explain why Moscow has gone to the trouble of putting forward a set of extremist demands that Ukraine and its allies have also flatly and repeatedly rejected – yet again. One European diplomat described this day as Groundhog Day. But in the movie, the fact that the day repeats itself doesn’t mean that it becomes predictable and boring, it means that you are constantly forced to relive it.
The 28 leaked points serve two purposes for Moscow. They present a very favorable starting block, and achieving just a fraction of it would be a big win. It’s also a building Russian diplomats can always return to if they want to engage in another round of slow diplomacy while the military has the upper hand.
The Istanbul 2022 document calls for Ukraine to constitutionally reject NATO membership, de-Naziize, guarantee neutrality and limit the size of its military. And when the initial ambition to invade Russia reached its climax, they were an amorphous set of maximalist terms that amounted to a form of Ukrainian capitulation.
Although Ukraine has survived formidably since that ruse, it has been weakened by the fighting.
On the surface, using $100 billion of frozen Russian funds to rebuild Ukraine appears to be a Russian concession. However, the most brutal areas of Ukraine are under Russian occupation, and this money will go to Russia to carry out reconstruction on Russian terms. The agreement proposes that half of the reconstruction profits be donated to the United States in some way, with a portion invested in other joint U.S.-Russian projects. The scope for the Russian government to gain much of this cashback is vast, and the deal also proposes a complete lifting of international sanctions, which would be a major financial boon for Russia itself.
Three other glass shards are hidden within this iteration of Russian diplomatic porridge. The first is the demand for an election 100 days after the signing of the agreement.
Given challenges such as demobilization, wartime logistics, and legal reform, this is considered technically impossible. The results of a hasty and poorly conducted poll would produce a government of questionable legitimacy, giving Russia enough room for misinformation and manipulation to put its preferred candidate at the top and drive another tank. President Zelenskiy could not accept this deadline, and a snap election was Russia’s canard from earlier this year, when it seemed like the Trump administration would be ousted. That resurgence, and with it the debate over Zelenskiy’s longevity, has resurfaced at a time of renewed weakness for the wartime leader.
The second is the confusing concept of turning part of the eastern Donbas region, currently under Ukrainian control, into a demilitarized zone, which is technically part of Russia. This is tantamount to handing them over to Russia’s “civilian” military. This is an area that Moscow will otherwise have to fight hard over the next year. Even a compromise that would declare the area a demilitarized zone and ban access to militaries from both sides would touch on Russia’s rich history of using “people’s militias” to invade territory and declare popular revolts in Moscow’s favor.
President Zelensky cannot cede Kramatorsk city. It would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a military bulwark to launch an even easier offensive across the plains toward Kiev, perhaps within months. That would expose Zelensky to domestic political challenges. The Russian government knows this, but it keeps making these concessions in the hope that President Trump will eventually see them as a necessary part of the solution.
Third, the text of the agreements circulated is vague, at times appearing hastily translated from Russian or Ukrainian, and contains several “snapback” provisions. One said that Ukraine’s security would be “considered ineffective” if it launched missiles “without reason into Moscow or St. Petersburg,” a warning with grave consequences and open to interpretation. Russia will likely have a different view of what kind of “cause” it has than Ukraine’s “cause.”
The agreement also requires that all “Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected or prohibited” in Ukraine, a repeat of Russia’s false claims that it faces a Kiev government run by Nazi extremists. Will a contract suddenly become invalid just because a far-right flag is displayed on a Ukrainian military unit or an SS Death’s Head emblem is posted on an unofficial military telegram page? In its current form, the deal is one that Moscow can reach at any time with minimal justification.
If there is a fault on the Russian side with this document, it lies not in its timing or blatant obstinacy, but in its clear explanation that Moscow retains most of the maximalist demands from which it started. This has infuriated President Trump in the past and actually resulted in the US imposing the toughest sanctions ever on Russia against oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.
But the Kremlin, understanding the rapid progress on the battlefield, the internal turmoil in Ukraine and the serious vulnerability of its front lines, European concerns about how much it could fund Kiev’s defense, and Trump’s overwhelming thirst for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, sought to make the old sound new again.
If you can buy time, it will be effective. If a third of it sticks or becomes a glossary for future trades, it works. Almost everything else has been tried once in the past year. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for Moscow to try the same old and bad idea again.
