The Plan. The Corruption. The Reality
Paul Niland examines exactly what is being demanded of Ukraine by Trump, Witkoff and Putin's 'peace plan', and asks for what price are American oligarchs so blatantly selling out an ally?
A “peace” plan was floated. It came as a shock for a few reasons. One was that the central object of this plan, Ukraine, had hardly been consulted.
Another shock was the fact that the provenance of the plan was disputed right from the beginning. How can something so serious be shrouded in confusion from the outset? It was a shock because of how Trump reacted, with seeming acceptance of something he apparently had not read and clearly did not understand, by issuing an ultimatum and a deadline for this to be accepted.
That was all before anyone even got into the details. Now, as this process continues to move along dual tracks and it can be seen how the matter is playing out, it is evident what the two tracks of discourse are; one is – incredibly – between the Trump Administration and Russia. They continue to find common ground. The other track is where Ukraine and her European allies understand the implications of what all of this means to those most affected by it.
Cutting a long story short, those two tracks are not going to converge.
Now, as the deadlines have expired and there is far greater understanding of this whole sordid affair through deep reporting across many reputable news outlets, how has all this felt from Ukraine?
First of all, calling it a “peace” plan was never any kind of reassurance to the people of Ukraine that it might actually bring peace. It is not just that there is no trust that Putin might stick to any agreement signed by him or binding on his country. It was more that the provisions of the plan obviously spelled out an intent to return to a warring state. Why else would Russia’s demands be a reduction in Ukraine’s army, a limitation on her alliances, and a limitation to her sovereign right to invite any troops she pleases onto her soil?
You do not have to be fluent in the original Russian language of those provisions to understand them. They mean: more war.
Then, there is the corruption. I don’t know what the lawyers might say about this, but Donald Trump Junior’s old college room-mate suddenly getting interested in investments in – presently sanctioned – Russian gas pipelines, that seems like more than a coincidence.
As the details unfolded, and it became clear how frozen Russian central bank assets were to be used as some kind of slush fund for joint US-Russian investment projects, and it appeared that a feeding trough was being created.
Similar to the way in which Russians close to Vladimir Putin were able to steal billions from massive infrastructure projects like the Sochi Winter Olympics and the 2018 World Cup Finals that Russia never should have hosted, now they were inviting the US oligarch class to share in the next windfall. And, the US oligarchs, Trump, Kushner, Witkoff, they eagerly bit.
From a Ukrainian vantage point, there was one question. How much?
The understanding of the business entanglements came in the days that followed the demands for concessions by Ukraine. Ukraine was going to have to give up occupied land, and give up other territory too, to an already indicted war criminal, leaving themselves defenceless – for how much?
What was the dollar value that Kushner and Witkoff saw in front of them and calculated was sufficient to betray a nation fighting pure evil? How much?
In the last 10 months, Ukrainians have gotten used to being sold short by Trump and factions of his Administration, but this is the first time that they have been so blatantly sold out.
An obvious part of the deception that the Russians employed here was to frame everything related to Ukraine in terms of a grand bargain, it all must be solved before any element of it can be.
That premise is false for a start, but that’s what the Kremlin man Dmitriev hooked Witkoff on. The calculation was that once this got under the noses of figures around Trump, everyone would be so sold on the glorious business opportunities, that whatever needed to be forced on Ukraine would be treated as if it were fairly insignificant. Well played, Moscow. That’s exactly what you achieved.
And another amazing thing is that anyone actually believes in the lie of lucrative business in Russia or with Russians. Have you been living under a rock? There is no rule of law there. People will extract what they want from whom they want with whatever pressure or force or violence that they deem appropriate. From market stalls to the largest oil company in the country, nothing is off limits. That’s the reality that the American marks missed due to their greed.
While demands were being made of Ukraine, as the plan surfaced and the content was being digested, a search and rescue mission was ongoing in the city of Ternopil following a Russian cruise missile strike on an apartment building. The death toll from that act of terror, 1,000 Km from the frontlines, was finally recorded as 39. Of those 39, which included children and whole families, 6 had initially been categorised as missing because no remains of their bodies were left. The impact must have vaporized them. And in that time, there was an ultimatum to Ukraine – issued by the United States of America – to capitulate to the perpetrators of that terrorist attack.
Ukraine was never going to accept these demands. Anyone who thought that the country or its leadership would be coerced into acquiescing does not have any understanding of the pressure that the country has been under and has learned to adapt to. It should be clear by now, after the heroism of the last 4 years especially, that Ukrainians aren’t about to be simply bullied into anything. Not by Putin, not by Trump, and not by the two of them in tandem.
If you don’t know how Ukrainians as a society stand up to bullies, I invite you to study the Revolution on Granite (1990), the Orange Revolution (2004-5) the Revolution of Dignity (2013-4) the first stage of Russian war in the Donbas (2014-22) and everything that has followed since 22 February 2022.
Fortunately, Ukraine did not, and does not, have to stand alone. Even as the betrayal from an incredibly powerful ally was still sinking in, it also became apparent that, in deciding that Ukraine was going to have to accept various wishes to coddle Russia so that certain people can get very rich, others were going to be feeling obligations and consequences foisted on them too.
Poland, for example, was designated as the home of “European” fighter aircraft. Whether that wording could have been interpreted from the original Russian as excluding US fighter jets from Poland was not immediately clear. But therein is a demand of NATO, Russia had snuck in a vote for themselves over NATO force displacement, something inconceivable normally.
However, that wasn’t all. Another demand of NATO was that they accept no new members ever. Not just Ukraine, anyone. That’s not a vote on NATO displacement, that’s a veto of NATO principles. The EU, too, was assigned a $100 billion obligation to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine. This is to make up a shortfall because Russia is getting some of their assets back to invest with the Americans.
Lastly, there was a demand made of the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The demand was that a deal include an amnesty for war crimes, something Vladimir Putin is desperate for, so that, in his mind at least, he thinks he can return to a degree of legitimacy and return to the G8 (another demand on another body) buoyed by an economy invigorated by sanctions relief (another demand).
This should all, reasonably, be a moral outrage for any person with any fibre of decency. The feelings of the people of Ukraine run even deeper.
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