Donald Trump’s proposed “peace plan” for Ukraine is less a strategy than a sleight of hand, a performance designed to appear statesmanlike while serving the interests of the very forces that made his return to power possible. It assumes, absurdly, that Vladimir Putin is interested in compromise, when in reality he remains committed to achieving the same expansionist goals with which he launched his invasion. More to the point, it ignores the fundamental dynamic at play: the longer the war continues, the more it benefits Russia. Under a second Trump administration, Western support for Ukraine is no longer a given but a function of America’s internal political drift.
Europe, for its part, has remained firm. Emmanuel Macron has openly discussed the possibility of deploying troops to Ukraine. Germany, despite its usual caution, has increased military aid. Even Britain, caught in its own domestic turmoil, continues to support Ukraine’s defence. The European consensus, however fragile on other issues, has not wavered when it comes to standing with Zelensky.
What has changed is Washington. Trump’s administration, along with the GOP establishment that enables it, has made clear that its commitment to Ukraine is contingent, transactional, and increasingly shaped by the party’s internal flirtation with isolationism.
Putin’s position is simple: he believes time is on his side. If he can outlast Ukraine’s backers in Washington, then Ukraine will be forced into submission. Trump’s repeated signals that he will “end the war” in a day only embolden Putin. In Moscow, such declarations are not taken as warnings but as invitations, an admission that the U.S. may be willing to sacrifice Ukrainian sovereignty on the altar of diplomatic expediency. And yet, for all his bluster, it has now been 54 days since Trump sat his fat arse back in the Oval Office, and the war in Ukraine rages on. The promised miracle of “day one” peace has, predictably, failed to materialise.
It is hardly the first time an imperialist power has sought to package capitulation as pragmatism. Chamberlain’s “peace for our time” in 1938 had a similar ring, as did Kissinger’s back-channel efforts to convince South Vietnam to accept defeat on America’s terms. What Trump is offering is less a peace plan than a formula for surrender, a message to Ukraine that it must learn to accept Russian occupation and to the Kremlin that its patience will be rewarded.
There is no real mystery here. Trump’s geopolitical instincts are, as always, transactional. His admiration for Putin is well-documented, as is his preference for strongman rule over the tedious constraints of international law. His chief concern is not peace but the opportunity to be seen as its broker, regardless of what it costs others. The most likely result is a frozen conflict in which Ukraine loses sovereignty and Russia gains breathing room, only for another war to erupt once conditions allow.
If it becomes clear that troops are required on the ground to keep the belligerent Putin at bay, then those troops will have to be European. There is no point looking to Brazil, India, or any other BRICS nation to act as a deterrent. They are, at best, neutral players in this conflict, at worst, quietly aligned with Russia’s broader goal of undermining the Western-led order. Europe cannot afford the illusion of global solidarity when the reality is that its security remains its own responsibility.
The real question is whether Europe alone can hold the line if the U.S. falters. In material terms, Ukraine remains dependent on American aid, and no European state—not even Germany—can match it. But politically, the division is already clear: where Europe sees an existential battle for sovereignty, Trump’s Washington sees a burdensome distraction. For Ukraine, the risks are catastrophic. For Russia, this is the outcome it has sought all along. And for Trump, the politics of the spectacle demand nothing more than the illusion of a solution, however ruinous its effects in the long run.
It is entirely possible to be a Marxist and recognise the threat that Putin’s Russia poses to the rest of Europe. The assumption, pushed by some sections of the left, that opposing NATO means turning a blind eye to Russian imperialism is both naïve and historically illiterate. NATO, for all its faults, is a predictable force, bound by bureaucracy and consensus. Putin’s regime, by contrast, is driven by personalist rule, violent revanchism, and an erratic disregard for international norms. His imperialism is no different to NATO’s, arguably, it is even more dangerous because it operates without institutional constraints. Russia’s wars, from Chechnya to Syria to Ukraine, are waged with an almost feudal brutality, a reminder that its leadership remains closer in spirit to the Tsars than to any kind of socialist tradition.
No one wants war, least of all those who understand its devastation for the working class. But war does not simply disappear because we wish it away. Ukraine did not choose this conflict, Russia imposed it. And if Ukraine needs support to defend itself against an invading army, then support it will have.
The principle is simple: occupation is a crime, whether committed by NATO forces in Iraq or Russian troops in Donetsk. There is no progressive case for abandoning a country to its reactionary neighbour. The idea that Western imperialism is the only form of imperialism worth opposing is a relic of Cold War dogma, one that ignores the agency of those fighting for their own sovereignty. Ukrainian workers and soldiers are not NATO’s puppets; they are defending their families and homes. And the left should be standing with them.
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