Donald Trump’s “peace” plan for the Ukraine-Russia war is, as sure as night follows day, a de facto Ukraine Surrender Plan, designed to offload a Trump headache, burnish (he thinks) his Nobel prospects, and give his friend Vladimir Putin almost everything he wants while rewarding him for his war crimes and his extinguishing scores of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives. The 28 point plan most affecting the one country disallowed any role in its formulation is in fact an ultimatum: surrender within a week or we cut you off entirely.
Putin is doing a happy dance, smiling at the ease with which he plays the American president. He gets to keep Ukrainian land he has taken by invasion, making Ukrainians in those areas suddenly Russian; Ukraine must unilaterally and significantly disarm, opening it to future invasion; it must forgo any hope of joining NATO, all while taking cold comfort in assurances that the United States, a totally undependable ally under the current administration, will be there when Putin comes back for more a year or two down the line.
The Ukraine Surrender Plan is one other thing: an absolute disgrace to the United States. It would shame us and haunt us. It already does just by being proposed. Being accepted in anything like its current form, it would further diminish us as the indispensable still-free (though starting to teeter) nation in the world, a world where democracy is in retreat, a world in which 72% of its eight billion inhabitants live under authoritarian regimes according to the Varieties of Democracy Institute and cited by PBS’s News Hour. Fortunately, Ukraine will save us most of that historic ignominy by rejecting Trump’s plan for its capitulation, by choosing not to live on its knees.
John Rachal's Blog
Trump’s Ukraine Surrender Plan
November 24, 2025 at 1:44 pm (Political Commentary)
Donald Trump’s “peace” plan for the Ukraine-Russia war is, as sure as night follows day, a de facto Ukraine Surrender Plan, designed to offload a Trump headache, burnish (he thinks) his Nobel prospects, and give his friend Vladimir Putin almost everything he wants while rewarding him for his war crimes and his extinguishing scores of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives. The 28 point plan most affecting the one country disallowed any role in its formulation is in fact an ultimatum: surrender within a week or we cut you off entirely.
Putin is doing a happy dance, smiling at the ease with which he plays the American president. He gets to keep Ukrainian land he has taken by invasion, making Ukrainians in those areas suddenly Russian; Ukraine must unilaterally and significantly disarm, opening it to future invasion; it must forgo any hope of joining NATO, all while taking cold comfort in assurances that the United States, a totally undependable ally under the current administration, will be there when Putin comes back for more a year or two down the line.
The Ukraine Surrender Plan is one other thing: an absolute disgrace to the United States. It would shame us and haunt us. It already does just by being proposed. Being accepted in anything like its current form, it would further diminish us as the indispensable still-free (though starting to teeter) nation in the world, a world where democracy is in retreat, a world in which 72% of its eight billion inhabitants live under authoritarian regimes according to the Varieties of Democracy Institute and cited by PBS’s News Hour. Fortunately, Ukraine will save us most of that historic ignominy by rejecting Trump’s plan for its capitulation, by choosing not to live on its knees.
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