Trump's peace plan for Ukraine assists “ally” Putin

2025 does not mark the end of wars, but the division between the dictatorships of East and West. The new Russian language dictionary relaunches visions of democracy and autocracy in official ideology. The speciality of Witkoff and Dmitriev, architects of the truce “project”, is counting money and dividing the spoils. The clash over language and the issue of coexistence between Orthodox Churches.

If further proof were needed of the close friendship between the two emperors Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, after giving Volodymyr Zelenskyj a hard time in February and staging a loving walk in Alaska in mid-August, here is the “peace plan” presented in November, right after discrediting the Ukrainian leader with the golden toilet scandal orchestrated by the FBI on behalf of the Kremlin. The outcome of global events in 2025 will not be the end of wars in Europe and the Middle East, but the division of the world between the dictatorships of the East and the West.

Just recently, the new State Language Dictionary was published in Russia, which requires terms to be interpreted according to the standards set by the official ideology of “orthodox sovereignty”. Democracy is thus defined as “the system of government that realises the interests of the most influential people”, while autocracy is “the most effective system for fulfilling the expectations of the population”, the synthesis of the policies of Putin and Trump, and many other dictators and “fathers of the nation” of the time in which we live. The authors of the Dictionary are obscure Kremlin officials, but behind their names we can clearly see the real inspirers, such as the American Steve Bannon and the Russian Aleksandr Dugin, the ideologues of the contemporary empire.

The ideology of sovereign autocracy can be summed up in the euphonious Russian slogan typical of Soviet times: Miru - Mir, “Peace to the World”, but also “The World to Peace”, understood as a reduction of the whole world to one's own understanding of peace (Mir means both Peace and World). And the peace of the 28 points, which are becoming fewer and fewer as “negotiations” advance in every corner of the world, is an effective expression of this “Russian idea” to which Americans are now adapting, which is summed up in the two words of the Soviet slogan. It can be expressed even more explicitly and effectively: Borba za Mir, “Struggle for Peace” or even “War for the World”.

Trump's 28 points, to be accepted “within a week” but then postponed for six months, according to the usual timing of the current White House chief, became 19 after the meetings in Geneva and Abu Dhabi, involving delegations and representatives of all kinds, even if the key authors remain the usual two, Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev (both advisers to Putin, as seen from the recordings released), whose speciality is not politics or diplomacy, nor military plans or legal specifications, but only the ability to count money by dividing up the pot.

Of the many topics on the list, one in particular demonstrates the new Russian-American worldview, and concerns the blocking of NATO expansion, in which the ban on Ukraine's entry is simply a secondary detail. It would be more logical to speak explicitly of the “end of NATO”, understood as a military alliance between America and Europe against the eastern threats of Russia, China and other Asian and non-Asian enemies. Russia does not want NATO at least as much as the United States wants to pull out of it today, abandoning Europeans to their fate, starting with the Ukrainians. After all, the fourth point clearly defines this new order, calling for “dialogue between Russia and NATO to ensure global security and increase the possibility of cooperation for future economic development”.

Here, then, are the consequences of this “dialogue”, explained in points 13-14, with the withdrawal of sanctions against Russia and its return to the G8, sharing the costs of reconstruction in Ukraine with 100 billion paid by the Europeans and 50% of any profits to be allocated to the US. Ukraine will be granted entry into the EU, with preferential access to the European market in the short term, still under American economic management thanks to the special financing programme developed by the World Bank, controlling above all the resumption of the extraction of minerals and natural resources, the favourite topic of direct talks between Trump and Zelenskyj, such as those being renewed these days. Obviously, there are also plans for “the conclusion of a long-term economic cooperation agreement” between Russia and the United States, thanks to the establishment of a “joint American-Russian working group”. The Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (point 19) will also be put into operation under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the electricity produced will be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine at 50%.

The least detailed of the 28 points presented by Trump is No. 20 on “Tolerance”, clearly inspired by the Russians to indicate the restoration of the Russian language in Ukraine, expressed in general terms that “the two countries commit to implementing educational programmes in schools and society aimed at promoting mutual understanding and tolerance”. The linguistic issue has been one of the main causes of the conflict since 2014, with the “de-Russification” underway in Ukraine also affecting Russian literature and culture in general, not only banning the “language of the invader”, which all Ukrainians speak in private but pretend not to know in public. Even more so, the issue concerns the coexistence of the two Orthodox Churches, identical in every linguistic and ritualistic aspect, the nationalist autocephalous Church and the pro-Russian patriarchal Church, where the only difference lies in the name of the primate invoked in the liturgical litanies.

The point most directly related to military issues obviously concerns the territories occupied and “annexed” by Russia, which, according to the Trump-Putin proposal, must be attributed to Moscow in their entirety as regards the four regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, while in the possible changes to the other ongoing negotiations, they would like to “freeze” them along the current front line, without forcing Ukraine to recognise Russia's sovereignty. It is clear that there is little chance of agreement between the two sides on this issue, both because of Ukrainian pride, which does not even recognise Russia's claim to Crimea, and because of Russia's ambitions, as it prepares a major military campaign for 2026, with the intention of also reaching Odessa and depriving Ukraine of all access to the Black Sea, one of Moscow's most explicit and indispensable military objectives not only in the current war, but since the medieval conflicts of Ivan the Terrible. Putin has in fact stated that all points will be discussed “only after the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops”.

The “mandatory” and then postponed plan also provides for the organisation of elections in Ukraine “within 100 days” of the signing of the peace treaty, while the European counter-proposal suggests a less rigid approach to the issue, without the need to set a strict deadline. After all, Europeans are the last champions of the much-despised “democracy”, and the idea of imposing radical and “autocratic” choices, as the Russians and Americans would like, perhaps in the wake of artfully orchestrated scandals, is perhaps the aspect that most distinguishes the different world views that are currently in conflict. The Ukrainians certainly need to find a way to rebuild that unites the various forces at play in national politics, but it will not be easy to escape the direct influence of Moscow and Washington, which currently converge on one point: the removal of Zelensky, one of the primary objectives of the Russian invasion of 2022.

The question of limiting the Ukrainian armed forces, the possible peacekeeping forces on the territory and security guarantees with regard to a possible resumption of the conflict obviously remains unresolved, where the evident uncertainty of the agreements reveals their fundamental inconsistency, making a conclusion by the end of this year, and perhaps even the next, highly unlikely. Trump, after all, cares little about a real solution to the war, beyond personal glory in view of new nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize, and Putin is truly interested in ideological victory over the West, now restricted to European territories, after having already conquered America. The two systems are based on business, projecting themselves against the backdrop of the real global conflict between Washington and Beijing, in which Moscow wants to be the arbiter and the great inspirer of both superpowers. Putin himself stated in Kyrgyzstan that “it makes no sense to sign documents with the Ukrainian leadership, which has lost its legitimacy by refusing to go to the polls, as Stalin said: it is not important who votes, what is important is who counts the votes”.

The fundamental inspiration is the revival of the mid-19th century tsarist triad, Samoderžavie – Pravoslavie – Narodnost, “Autocracy – Orthodoxy – Populism”, which, two hundred years after the “gendarme of Europe”, Tsar Nicholas I, who ascended the throne in December 1825, is now reincarnated in Tsar Putin I. At that time, attempts were made to convince the kingdoms of Europe, including the Roman Church, not to give in to the temptations of liberalism and socialism, and to assert this worldview, the Russians invaded Crimea, hoping to conquer Europe and the Black Sea lands as far as Turkey and the Holy Land. The journey back in history continues, with the support of America, no longer the standard-bearer of democracy for the whole world, let alone for the derelict Ukraine, the geographical and political centre of Europe.