The Trump administration and Russia have drafted a plan to end the war in Ukraine, without Ukraine's involvement. The plan would allegedly require Kyiv to surrender territory and significantly reduce the size of its army and some types of weaponry.
David Silbey is an adjunct associate professor of history at Cornell University, specializing in military history, defense policy and battlefield analysis.
Silbey says: “I think the leaked peace initiative is largely an attempt to put pressure on Zelensky. The plan itself concedes most of Russia’s demands and is simply a non-starter for Ukrainians. While Ukraine is slowly losing the war, the situation isn’t so bad now that the country has to give up what the plan demands, including a substantial amount of land, a shrinking of the military and various other highly constrictive requirements.
“Zelensky is weakened by a corruption scandal at the moment, and this seems like a way of pushing him towards a settlement and giving Trump another war to claim he settled. It’s pretty ham-fisted though and seems unlikely to work.”
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