How JD Vance’s plan for Ukraine plays into the hands of Putin

The strategy of Donald Trump’s running mate won’t be met with any fanfare in Kyiv

JD Vance has outlined his plans for Ukraine—and while Western leaders are no stranger to pressuring the country into becoming a neutral state in order to end a war with Russia, Vance’s plans come dangerously close to playing into Putin’s hands.
In 2015, France and Germany were so desperate to broker a ceasefire to end the fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in the eastern Donbas that they agreed to surrender Kyiv’s sovereignty.
This came in the form of Minsk II, a peace plan imposed on then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, which was endorsed by Moscow, Berlin, and Paris.
It ordered Ukraine, Russia, and the Kremlin’s proxies to end their fighting, pull back heavy weapons from the contact line, and Kyiv’s de facto surrender of occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
A political Trojan horse was included that forced Kyiv to rewrite its constitution to include a neutrality clause, essentially ruling out membership of the US-led NATO military alliance and the European Union.
The plan recently outlined by Mr Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, is starting to look like what could be described as a Minsk III.
Trump and Mr Vance have promised to, once again, bring a diplomatic, and rapid, end to the long-running conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
The invasion will have almost reached its third anniversary by the time the Republican candidate takes office—if he secures victory in the November 5 election.
There has been little in the way of concrete plans presented by Trump’s campaign about how he could bring about peace.
But Mr Vance, the vice presidential candidate, gave the clearest signal of what he could do.
He suggested there be a ceasefire with a demilitarized zone that is “heavily fortified so the Russians don’t invade again” in the territory now occupied by Moscow.
The Kremlin’s forces currently hold about 20 per cent of Ukraine, and are still gaining land slowly in the east.
Mr Vance then echoed a familiar strategy for attempts at brokering peace between Russia and Ukraine—a neutrality clause.
He suggested that Kyiv would maintain its independence in exchange for a guarantee it wouldn’t join NATO or other “allied institutions.”
Suggestions that Trump will push for a deal in favor of Putin are only fueled by the pair’s close relationship. The American recently said he had “a very good relationship” with the Russian, while standing next to Volodymyr Zelensky.
Putin will seek to exploit his bond with Trump to ensure he enters any peace talks with the upper hand—the opposite of the current Western strategy when the time for negotiations comes along.
The 2015 agreement that was meant to bring an end to the war in the Donbas was immediately violated, with Russian-backed forces capturing the Donetsk region village of Debaltseve, which fell into Moscow’s hands two days after the pact was signed.
Seven years later came the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Given the previous renditions of the Minsk agreements failed to prevent war, Mr Vance’s strategy won’t be met with any fanfare in Kyiv.
So much so, Mr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, has already given the idea a short shrift, declaring he is not ready to cede territory in exchange for peace.