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Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine rewards Russian aggression

Accepting Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea would upend a core tenet of U.S. foreign policy.

By MAX BOOT

Washington Post
April 24, 2025

In its well intentioned but rushed and ham-handed attempts to end the war in Ukraine, the Trump administration is flirting with disaster. Apparently, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, has crafted a peace plan after traveling to Moscow for three lengthy meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin — but never once going to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The one-sided plan is now being presented to the Ukrainians on a “take it or leave it” basis, with Trump on Wednesday writing online that Zelensky “can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country.”

The Telegraph and Axios have run the most complete accounts of the seven-point U.S. proposal, which has not been publicly released. According to their reporting, the United States would extend de jure (i.e., legal) recognition of the Russian annexation of Crimea and de facto (i.e., in practice) recognition to the Russian occupation of parts of four other Ukrainian regions. This would be accompanied by other gifts to Putin, including a promise that Ukraine never become part of NATO (though it could join the European Union) and that U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia since its 2014 occupation of Crimea be lifted, ushering in a new period of U.S.-Russian economic cooperation.