A Bad Peace

Dec. 11, 2025

Ukraine made the biggest geopolitical mistake of the 20th century when it surrendered to Moscow the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for worthless promises. I was in Kyiv and personally watched the angry debates in parliament in 1993 that stretched until 2 am as generals, priests, and politicians shouted and debated about the danger of handing over thousands of strategic warheads to Moscow. But Washington, London, and a then-benign Russia insisted. The deal became the 1994 Trilateral Statement and later the Budapest Memorandum: Ukraine would dismantle its missiles, silos, and bombers, join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in return receive “security assurances” — not guarantees. The U.S. offered $500 million to help destroy the weapons. The West promised everything — sovereignty, territorial integrity, protection, but did nothing after Russia invaded in 2014 and again in 2022. As Zelensky commented last January, it “was stupid, illogical” for Ukraine to ever give up its nukes.

Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and Leonid Kravchuk made a deal in January 1994

Once again, Washington pushes Ukraine to sign a “stupid, illogical” deal with Russia by making concessions without obtaining any enforceable consequences for Moscow or real, binding security guarantees. Ukraine now demands what it should have gotten decades ago from Europe and America. President Zelensky once more asks, if Russia attacks again, what will the West actually do? This is the critical issue at the center of “peace” talks to end Russia’s war. This was also the case in 1994 when President Bill Clinton jammed a deal down Ukraine’s throat, and now President Donald Trump attempts to do the same.

Clinton hoped to make the world safer by denuclearizing Ukraine, but ended up accomplishing the opposite. Trump hopes to stop the war, make lucrative business deals along the way with Russia, which will also end up making the world more dangerous. Trump tries to bully Kyiv and lets Putin off the hook, and that’s not working. Putin is emboldened, and US polls show that the majority of Americans in both parties don’t approve of this. A March 2025 CNN survey reported that 59% of Americans disapproved of his handling of the US relationship with Russia. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from the same period found that 56% of respondents agreed that Trump is too closely aligned with Moscow.

Trump also tries to weaken Ukraine’s bargaining position by parroting the Kremlin narrative that Ukraine cannot win and should capitulate. But military experts at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington say otherwise: “The Kremlin is significantly intensifying its cognitive warfare effort to present the Russian military and economy as able to inevitably win a war of attrition against Ukraine. The Kremlin’s cognitive warfare effort aims to achieve several of Putin’s original war aims through a negotiated settlement, as Russian forces are currently unable to achieve them on the battlefield. Russian forces have gained 0.77 percent of Ukrainian territory since the start of 2025 while suffering disproportionately high personnel costs.”

Trump also tries to sandbag Ukraine’s European allies to get them to lean on Ukraine. He insulted them in his new strategic report, then on December 8, privately informed them that they must assume responsibility for all of NATO’s conventional defence capabilities by 2027. This includes everything except nuclear weapons: from intelligence systems and satellite reconnaissance, through missile defence and aviation, to ground forces and logistics. The new 2027 deadline pressures a militarizing Europe, while Trump refuses to bring Putin to his economic knees with more sanctions.

Thus, Russia won’t stop shooting, and its newest “peace” demands are that Ukraine hand over an area the size of Connecticut, which is of strategic importance and has 200,000 people, industries, and resources. It’s part of two regions, known as the “Donbas”, that Putin has been gradually seizing since 2014. Since then, he seized nearly all of Luhansk and 75% of Donetsk and now wants the rest. But it’s not his, never was, and he hasn’t stolen all of it as yet, so Ukrainians won’t hand it over.

Trump’s son tries to shake up allies by claiming his father may “walk away” from negotiations. Trump himself slurs Zelensky by claiming he hasn’t read documents and ignores the fact that his “people” like the idea, which are fabrications. An influential parliamentarian summarized the facts: “It’s ridiculous. The [Ukrainian] people don’t love this. Nobody’s saying let’s give it up – give up for what? What is Russia being asked to give up? The people now refuse to evacuate the area he desires. There are critical minerals there, and why give them to Putin? Even if we wanted to do this, there are fortifications in the region that Putin wants to dismantle or destroy, so the Russian army would get to Kyiv in three days, to Kharkiv in less time along unprotected roads, and eventually the Polish border shortly after. Then who’s going to protect us after Putin breaks that deal in one year, America, France, Britain?”

Ukraine has been working with allies and has devised a 20-point “peace” plan. The Washington Post reported some amendments on December 10. “US envoys recognize that security guarantees are the critical issue in getting Ukrainian and European support. Russia won’t budge in its opposition to European troops in Ukraine as a ‘deterrence force’ after a ceasefire. Instead, US officials have considered offering the Tomahawks to Ukraine as an alternative. The officials feel confident that Ukraine wouldn’t use these preemptively against Russia, because that would cost it US and European support.” A new US draft also tries to reassure Ukraine that it would be secure behind the ceasefire line if the withdrawal zone is demilitarized. It also proposed that the US and allies would help Ukraine build a security “wall” along the ceasefire line, using advanced technology.

The corruption scandal and potential instability in Ukraine have also been addressed in new revisions, wrote The Washington Post’s David Ignatius. “US officials included a proposal for national elections in Ukraine within 100 days after an agreement is signed, which would amount to a public ratification or rejection of the agreement. They also added a clause providing postwar amnesty, at Ukraine’s request, to reassure Zelensky and members of his government that they wouldn’t face prosecution if the current corruption scandal widens.” Zelensky has agreed to elections.

Unfortunately, Trump’s bias has poisoned the process to the point that European leaders are worried about treachery, according to conversations reported by Der Spiegel. French President Emanuel Macron warned German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that “there is a chance that the US will betray Ukraine on territory without clarity on security guarantees.” Even Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, a golfer with a good relationship with Trump, warned “we must not leave Ukraine and Volodymyr [Zelensky] alone with these guys,” he told leaders.

Merz, Starmer, Zelensky, and Macron December 2025

Fortunately, on December 3, the European Commission finally unveiled a plan to finance Ukraine for at least the next couple of years by confiscating frozen Russian assets worth $245 billion. This is a lifesaver and long overdue.

However, there are two more unresolved issues allies must zero in on. The occupied Zaporizhzhia region is where Europe’s largest nuclear reactor has been held hostage by Russia since 2022. It is guarded by Russians who have surrounded it with explosives. If detonated under certain weather conditions, it could unleash a meltdown and a gigantic radioactive plume over Ukraine and much of Europe. It also needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid catastrophic nuclear incidents, and new reports by international inspectors of negligence are worrisome. And in February, Russian drones struck Ukraine’s Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), rendering the protective structure unable to fulfill its primary safety functions of containing its core. Russians also control that facility. These are important because nuclear plants in the hands of Russia are ticking nuclear bombs. Both must be occupied by international nuclear authorities and forces.

There is little doubt that Trump is going to go down in history, as did Clinton, for being “stupid and illogical” about Russia, and making the world more dangerous, not safer. A Wall Street Journal editorial noted perceptively that “a bad Ukraine deal” will also spur nuclear proliferation globally because America’s pressure on Ukraine to cede its territory will embolden non-nuclear states to consider developing their own nuclear arsenals. As Poland bluntly said to Europe and America in 1999: “If you don’t let us into NATO, we’re getting nuclear weapons. We don’t trust the Russians.”

And absolutely nobody in their right mind should.

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