Mr. Appeasement: How Trump’s Surrender to Putin Rewards Dictatorship Over Democracy

Russia is losing the war. Trump 'peace deal' hands Putin victory in Ukraine -and invites Russia into hemispheric contest with Canada.

Russia is losing the war in Ukraine. Its economy is contracting under sanctions, its military suffers catastrophic casualties, its offensives grind forward at unsustainable cost. So Donald Trump decided this was the moment to give Vladimir Putin everything he invaded for—plus an Arctic resource partnership and readmission to the G7.

The 28-point plan obtained by The Telegraph reads like terms between victor and vanquished, except Trump cast the roles backward. Putin gets Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk recognized as Russian territory by the United States—a reversal of decades of decades of policy opposing territorial changes by force. He gets Kherson and Zaporizhzhia frozen along current lines, meaning de facto Russian control. He gets sanctions lifted “in stages,” two-thirds of €300 billion in frozen assets returned, and G7 readmission.

Ukraine gets to cut its military in half, surrender long-range missiles, pledge never to join NATO, hold elections in 100 days, and evacuate parts of Donetsk to create a demilitarized buffer zone that becomes “territory belonging to the Russian Federation.” Kyiv receives security guarantees that vanish if Ukraine violates any provision—including firing missiles at Moscow “without cause,” a term left undefined.

Point 26 grants “full amnesty for their actions during the war” to all parties, who “agree not to make any claims or consider any complaints in the future.” Vladimir Putin invaded a sovereign nation, destroyed cities, systematically killed civilians, forcibly deported children earning him an ICC warrant—and will face zero accountability. This isn’t peace. It’s impunity as policy.

Then comes the economic architecture that reveals the deal’s true character. Point 13(b) establishes“long-term economic cooperation agreement for mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centres, rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic, and other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities.”

Trump is making Russia—an autocratic petrostate currently waging war—America’s partner in Arctic resource extraction. Not Canada. Not democratic allies who defended Ukrainian sovereignty. The dictator who invaded gets the development deals.