This ‘peace plan’ is not only a tragedy for Ukraine, but an immediate crisis for Britain
22 November 2025
These are not peace terms. They are the exactions that a victorious power wrings from a conquered rival. Limits on the size of the Ukrainian army. A ban on Nato membership. No Western troops on Ukrainian soil. No US aircraft even in neighbouring Poland. Fresh elections to remove Volodymyr Zelensky.
Russia will not disgorge a single grain of illicitly annexed soil. It will not even push its frontier to the existing front lines. No, it will actually be awarded territory currently held by Ukraine, formally extending its rule over the entirety of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and acquiring some 250,000 new subjects.
Luhansk, it is true, is already largely occupied by Russia, with Ukraine contesting only a handful of border villages. But the front line has run through Donetsk since the fighting began in 2014. Surrendering the Ukrainian-held portion would mean handing over the country’s most important defensive emplacements, rather as Czechoslovakia was forced to relinquish its border forts in 1938.
I don’t much care for Second World War analogies, and I have not dragged Munich into a column before, but the parallels this time are hard to ignore. Russian-speakers in the Donbas were stirred up precisely as the ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia had been. Volodymyr Zelensky offered moderate territorial concessions to Putin at the beginning of the conflict, just as Edvard Beneš had suggested transferring several thousand square miles of Czech land to Germany.
In both cases, the eventual deal was instead done by others over the carcass of the sacrificed nation. Just as Beneš resigned following the deal, so it seems unthinkable that Zelensky, already on the ropes after his autocratic response to corruption allegations, can cling on as president.
We all know what happened after Munich. Six months later, despite his talk of a full and final settlement of Germany’s claims, Hitler occupied the rest of the rump Czech state, absorbing it into his realm as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Does Putin dream of one day recommencing hostilities with a mutilated Ukraine, by then forbidden by treaty to join the Western alliance? If he did launch further strikes, who would stop him? After Munich, Europe was under no further illusions about the threat that Hitler posed, and Chamberlain used the time he had bought to crank up aircraft production. Putin, by contrast, is to be welcomed back into the comity of nations, his assets unfrozen, his country invited to turn the G7 into the G8 – a status justified neither by the size of Russia’s economy nor by the state of its democracy.
Perhaps Ukrainians, exhausted and demoralised, will accept these terms as the starting point of armistice negotiations. The alternatives, after all, are unappealing. They could struggle on without US arms and ammunition while European nations ransacked their already bare shelves to make up some of the shortfall. But they will not be able to survive the withdrawal of American intelligence sharing and satellite data, on which they depend for strike targeting, early warning and reconnaissance.
Trump switched off the intelligence in March, but restored it a week later under pressure from his generals and his then national security adviser, the impressive former special forces officer Mike Waltz. Terrifyingly, the civilian and military officials who advised against the switch-off have since been moved, and the next withdrawal would be permanent.
So much, by the way, for the notion that the US is simply being non-interventionist or parsimonious, that its sole concern is avoiding the cost of wars. Sharing intelligence costs almost nothing, and the US could sell matérielto European countries for use in Ukraine. No, this is not cost-cutting or isolationism. This is picking a side – Putin’s side. The US and Russia are falling greedily on the energy resources and assets of a ruined former American ally.
We are back to where we feared we would be when Donald Trump won the 2024 election. Any pretence at even-handedness has gone. All that talk about “very severe consequences” if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire at the Alaska summit has been shown to be nonsense. As I have mournfully written before, I don’t believe the claims that Putin has kompromat on Trump; but the tragic truth is that, kompromator no kompromat, Trump is behaving precisely as he would if he were a Russian asset.
The US and Russia negotiated bilaterally, cutting out not only Ukraine but every other interested party, especially Britain which had been Ukraine’s earliest and strongest supporter. Trump was represented in those talks by the dim and lamentable Steve Witkoff, a New York estate agent who, in an excruciating interview with Tucker Carlson, revealed that he did not know the names of any of the Ukrainian territories being argued over, and rhapsodised about the “beautiful portrait” of Trump that the Kremlin kleptocrat had sent his American imitator.
This is not only a tragedy for Ukraine, a country that has suffered more than its fair share of tragedies over the past century. It is an immediate crisis for Britain, which finds itself cut adrift from the country that has been its most powerful ally since 1941.
Was it a coincidence that, just as the terms of the 28-point capitulation proposal were emerging, a Russian spy ship in British waters was flashing military-grade lasers at our pilots? Perhaps it was. Perhaps the Defence Secretary, John Healey, was bigging up the incident in order to burnish his leadership credentials. But I don’t think so. It seems likelier that Putin was flaunting and taunting: flaunting his victory in Ukraine and taunting the country that he resents above all others.
To hear the innermost thoughts of Putin, it is useful to listen to his henchman, Dmitry Medvedev, who slouches at his master’s heels like a hunchbacked Igor in the service of some Gothic villain. Medvedev, speaking the quiet parts aloud, describes Britain as “Moscow’s eternal enemy”, and opines that “we need to solve the problem at its root and immediately sink the damned island of Anglo-Saxon dogs”.
Where does this hatred come from? Some say that Putin resents the way British special forces disposed of his allies in Syria; others that his resentment is older, going back to his being checked by MI6 when he was a KGB agent in East Germany. Perhaps it has to do with the way in which London became the favoured exile of anti-Putin émigrés, who sought safety in one of the few places where neither police chiefs nor judges could be bribed. Or perhaps it goes back to the Anglo-Russian rivalry of the 19th century, and with which Putin, who seems to have spent the lockdown reading indifferent history books, is doubtless familiar.
Whatever the explanation, the Ukraine peace plan represents almost as serious a defeat for Britain as for Ukraine. Since 1956, we have consulted with the United States before making any serious military deployment. Our relationship is not as one-sided as critics pretend: Britain has benefited immensely from American willingness to share its intelligenceand its nuclear technology, something it does with no other country. Now, all of a sudden, that alliance is left looking flimsy and contingent.
So, more worryingly, is the world order that it has defended since the Atlantic Charter of August 1941, a world order based on the idea that borders should not be changed by force, that democracy is preferable to dictatorship and that the rule of law should operate among as well as within states.
How has that system fallen to a country that, even before the war, had a smaller economy than Italy, and which has since lost millions of men through emigration and military fatalities, to say nothing of losing hundreds of billions of roubles in the diversion of industries?
The answer is that it has fallen, not because of an external foe, but because of an internal shift of values. It has been defeated, not by Putin but by Trump. Westerners have done this to themselves. Our children will live to rue the day.
Comment from :
John Polenski
Trump IS a Russian asset, and always has been. It no longer matters why. Except yet again, why did so many of you doubt this for so long?
The text of the plan now appears to have been translated directly from Russian. They’re not even pretending.
And the main enabler is not Witkoff, but Vance.
David Critchley
Trump is a disgrace not merely to America or democracy but to the human race.
And why? If not Kompromat then fear of Putin or lust for Russian treasure.
Les Kaye
The American taxpayer is noticing the cost of this war and wants it over.
The problem is that Trump thinks that there is a deal to be done, whereas the reality is that regime change in Russia and the break-up of the Russian Federation is the only solution.
Chris Morris
But the author offers no alternative solutions, just the usual attack on Trump. It actually should be remembered that Putin’s aim, at the beginning of the war, was to take Ukraine completely – he has failed, this is certainly no victory for Russia.
Anthony Pryer
Europe definitely needs to step up. During the Cold War we spent the same on defence as the NHS . Now the NHS gets 5x the amount of defence, and we’ll give money to anyone who feels a bit uncertain about their life or who claims to be too anxious to work.
Meanwhile Trump’s son Eric has told us about his relationship with Russia. His businesses are in hock to Russian banks and he has a number of lucrative business projects in Russia. American banks won’t go near him because of his several bankruptcies and the opacity of his accounting methods. He also told the CIA to stop investigating Russian links. And the director of Russia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund visited Florida a short while ago.
Putin has already persuaded him to break up NATO. The only time NATIs article 5 has been after 9/11 when we all went to war to support the US.
Absolutely astonishing in an American President. All he has to do now is work out a way of literally becoming a dictator without the American voters noticing, then he’ll be up there with Putin and Xi.
Tony Robinson
Reply to Anthony Pryer
Meanwhile many British businessmen have lucrative deals with President Xi and China.
Don’t they care about Tibet, Hong Kong, the Spratly Islands, Taiwan, the Uighurs and other political prisoners in concentration camps?
Anthony Pryer
Reply to Tony Robinson – view message
That is true, but they are not political leaders deciding on the political stance of a powerful nation.
JAMES PARGETER
We don’t need the US if Europe could unite as one and had the balls to stand up to Putin. The Uk and France should put all their nuclear assets on standby. Multiple nuclear subs at sea and strategically positioned French nuclear fighters. Station a large number of European air assets in Estonia , Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Romania. Tell Putin that any further advances into Ukraine will be seems a threat to European security and will be treated as an act of war. While everyone likes to put down the strength of Europe’s military it would decimate what’s left of Russia’s forces in days without a single soldier getting involved. Ukraine has held Russia out with virtually no airforce and Europe has hundreds of modern fighters. A united Europe could defeat Putin easily. We just need to stand up to him.
Joseph Gabbott
It may well be that Trump is a Russian asset. Another explanation – after his recent outburst that Democratic senators who urged the US armed forces to obey the law should be executed – is that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Indeed, both explanations may be valid.
Nick Barnes
I’m appalled you would take this view of Trumps actions.
You’ve taken the same easy view of people who primarily hate Trump, and Ukraine is secondary to them.
The UK and Europe could have done a LOT more instead of hiding within NATO, behind the USA’s skirts. The problem is the UK can’t/ won’t afford the help required for Ukraine to not need to cede ground.
There is plenty of blame to go around here. No need to heap it all on one person to make yourself feel better.
Yvonne Johnson
Reply to Nick Barnes
Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham favour Trump and they find the Peace Plan unacceptable. Ditto even Farage.
Trump is now backtracking on the plan as he sees that even his staunch supporters find it unjust.
Martin Smith
An honest person would just admit that, since Europe doesn’t care enough about Ukraine to either spend enough on defence or fight Russia to defend Ukraine, it is utterly absurd to ask Americans to keep doing it for us.
That’s the real reason Trump is bringing this to an end. It’s not in Americans interests to see their tax dollars go to a country they don’t support.
Until we do what we are asking them to do, we can shut up about telling America what we think of them. The hypocrisy is just remarkable.
Yvonne Johnson
The majority of Americans support Ukraine and are in favour of sending arms.
https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/dramatic-rise-republican-support-ukraine
Kenneth Summerfield
Trump has completely capitulated to the world’s greatest Dictator wanted for War Crimes and responsible for the murders of thousands of innocent civilians and children. As well as caving in on all Russian demands including welcoming Russia back to the G7, while no mention of similar concessions from Putin or promise that he will not gain any immunity from future prosecution. This would be the greatest appeasement to an invading nation since Neville Chamberlain and The Munich Agreement in 1938. This will only embolden Russia to threaten neighbouring countries in Europe and world peace. That is not negotiation it is totally one sided and abandons the future security of the people of Ukraine and Europe.
Trump claimed he would end the Russian war in Ukraine on “day one”. CNN report that he repeated this ludicrous claim on at least 53 separate occasions. That is the measure of the man who completely failed to understand the complexities of war and Putin’s repeated broken promises. Staggeringly he still believes he should be nominated for The Nobel Peace Prize. He is completely delusional if he believes Putin can be trusted.
RL Izzo
The betrayal of the Ukraine didn’t start with Trump. It started with Obama and the EU in 2014 with allowing Russia to invade and take over Crimea without a whisper. It then continued with Biden who restricted how the weapons given to the Ukraine could be utilized and the limited help from the EU and UK. What Trump has done, is to continued the breach of faith by the previous presidents and Europe to the Ukraine people. Approximately 30 yrs ago an independent Ukraine gave up their nuclear arsenal. According to Wikipedia, the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises four substantially identical political agreements signed at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Budapest, Hungary, on 5 December 1994, to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The four memoranda were originally signed by four nuclear powers: Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. France and China gave individual assurances in separate documents. Those ‘security assurances’, have proven not to be worth the paper they were written on at least for Ukraine.
Maybe Trump should listen to Yvonne Johnson instead of Putin.
“Any pretence at even-handedness has gone. All that talk about “very severe consequences” if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire at the Alaska summit has been shown to be nonsense.”
Precisely.
“Trump was represented in those talks by the dim and lamentable Steve Witkoff, a New York estate agent who, in an excruciating interview with Tucker Carlson, revealed that he did not know the names of any of the Ukrainian territories being argued over, and rhapsodised about the “beautiful portrait” of Trump that the Kremlin kleptocrat had sent his American imitator.”
Of course this reptile would choose Fucker Karlsonov for his interview.
Utterly foul and repellent.
Taco has no positive features whatsoever in his persona, but plenty of rotten ones. Most of his supporters are not much better.