How Trump Can Negotiate a Just and Lasting Peace to End His Unwinnable Proxy War Against Russia in Ukraine

Trump has transformed from a peace president into a war president, alienating his conservative voting base, but its not too late for him to reverse course and go back to putting America First.

President Donald Trump decision to stand up to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he denounced Trump as a Putin propagandist in the Oval Office on February 28th thrilled America First conservatives like myself. However, his decision to show weakness by repeatedly caving and appeasing Zelensky over the past few months has caused him to lose the support of much of his voting base.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that the key metric for judging his presidency and particularly his foreign policy will be how many wars he stops and ends. During his successful presidential campaign, he seemed to instinctively understand the fact that fighting endless wars is how empires like Rome’s and imperial republics like America's go bankrupt and collapse. During his inaugural address on January 20th, he stated “We will measure success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly the wars we never get into.” He has also repeatedly stated he wants to be remembered as a peace President. President Trump was elected to office pledging to end the war in Ukraine within twenty-four hours of being inaugurated.

President Trump promised to be a transformational peace president. Shortly after he came to office, he seemed to prioritize restoring diplomatic relations with Russia. Earlier in his presidency, Trump was very critical of Zelensky calling him “a dictator without elections” and blaming him along with his predecessor Joe Biden for provoking Russia to invade Ukraine. He also attacked Zelensky for refusing to sign the Trump proposed minerals deal without a US security guarantee. This culminated in Zelenksy’s tirade insulting Trump as repeating Russian President Vladimir Putin’s talking points in the Oval Office after which he ordered a total cut off of US military and security assistance from March 4-March 11^th until Zelensky agreed to support a cease-fire on Ukrainian conditions he knew would be unacceptable to Russia. However, since then Trump has increasingly placed most of the blame on Russia for refusing Zelenksy’s proposed conditional thirty-day cease-fire.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth articulated a grand strategy in which the US would withdraw many of our troops from Europe and the Middle East and refocus on two main missions—First, hemispheric and strategic defense and secondly deterring Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific. Meanwhile, President Trump has articulated his desire to neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance by ending the war in Ukraine and transforming Russia from an adversary to a geostrategic partner with greatly increased bilateral economic cooperation. He has demonstrated very good instincts in wanting to extricate the US out of our forever wars.

Trump’s Transformation From a Peace President into a War President

But while Trump came to office with an excellent grand strategic vision, he has not been following it and apparently has no realistic plan or ideas how to implement and achieve it. Unfortunately, his foreign policy actions, most recently his blank check of US military support to Ukraine announced this week and his 50-day ultimatum that Russia agree to Ukraine’s 30-day cease-fire terms which Russia rejected the very next day, are serving to ensure the frustration and defeat of his most important laudable foreign policy objectives. Trump has committed to $10 billion in new arms sales in the first wave of weapons shipments to Ukraine including long-range offensive ATACMs missiles, air defense interceptors and heavy artillery shells,

Asked on July 15th whose side he is on in the war, Trump responded, “I’m on the side of humanity” appearing to try to downplay his decision to back Ukraine to the hilt and encourage Zelensky to escalate his attacks on Russian cities with long-range Western missile strikes. Later the same day, a White House spokesperson said that Trump still views Putin as his main negotiating partner and considers Zelensky as the principal obstacle to achieving a durable and enduring peace. This contradiction seems to highlight how much Trump is acting in a way to sabotage his own strategic vision by going all out to support Zelensky--the dictator whom he rightly considers the main obstacle to peace--while refusing to either meet with or negotiate peace with Putin whom we are told is his main negotiating partner and at the same time taking hostile actions against Russia likely to prevent any negotiations from ever occurring and prolong the war indefinitely.

During his first term, Trump’s biggest America First foreign policy plans including the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, a comprehensive peace agreement with Russia which would have eliminated Russia as a threat to the US and a US withdrawal from the NATO alliance. Similarly, Trump’s second term foreign policy has increasingly been hijacked by a cadre of Deep State neocon America Last saboteurs occupying the highest ranks of the Trump Cabinet. Instead of ending America’s wars, he has acted to start new wars in Yemen and most recently Iran while escalating and unnecessarily prolonging the wars he inherited from the Biden administration in Ukraine and the Middle East, breaking his campaign pledges to end America’s wars. Fighting forever wars without end and embracing and expanding America’s liberal empire instead of abandoning it seems to be his new presidential mantra.

One of the best metrics of determining exactly how far President Trump has violated his campaign pledge to end America’s forever wars and not start any new ones is the fact that President Trump has ordered almost as many military strikes in less than six months than Biden did in his four-year presidential term. That amounts to a daily average strike rate eight times higher than Biden and is the very definition of America Last. According to an article in The American Conservative:

"A peacemaker Trump has not proven to be. In less than one year, Trump has overseen 529 strikes compared to 555 during President Biden’s entire four-year term. For those of us who voted for Trump with the hope that the wars might indeed end, Trump is not unlike the other characters who have called 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home these last few decades. Every time he has been presented with the opportunity to wash his hands of these tawdry wars occurring thousands of miles from our shores, Trump has fallen short. He should have interrupted Rutte and firmly explained that we are no longer the world’s police, that all of this gamesmanship and war abroad has severely weakened us on the domestic front. But interrupt Rutte, he did not. As with other failed promises from the campaign trail, now that Trump is in office, it is much much easier to roll over and allow the wars continue. And so Trump, the man who predicted we would have World War III if the Democrats won, is now the main figure pushing war across the globe. He is, whether we like to admit it or not, our latest war president."

Why Diplomacy is the Most Powerful Weapon to Achieve Real Peace and Security

I believe that the most important lesson of history is that a key but often overlooked element of a policy of "peace through strength" is fully utilizing diplomacy to improve relations with our enemies and create win-win solutions to resolve potential conflicts before they escalate to direct military conflict. I would even go so far as to say that using diplomacy to negotiate agreements to avoid or end military conflicts is much more important than how much America spends on national defense or how we choose to utilize the US military.

President Ronald Reagan meeting with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev during his second term. Had Reagan and President George HW Bush not negotiated a diplomatic end to the Cold War, the Soviet Union would likely still exist and Soviet troops would still be occupying central and eastern Europe today. Sadly, US leaders have since forgotten the importance of diplomacy in resolving conflicts, ending wars and making Americans more safe and secure.

In my 45-year long study of war and peace I have learned that robust diplomatic peace efforts that end in agreements that recognize the vital national security interests of both parties are often more important than military strength in guaranteeing a just and lasting peace. In response to those who think destroying our enemies is the only way to bring about lasting peace, there are countless examples in history of peace deals ending or preventing wars that turned enemies into friends. The British peace deals with the US in 1902, with their eternal enemy France in 1904 and with Russia in 1907 are prime examples. Trump could forge a peace deal with Russia today that would guarantee peace with them for over half a century if he had the political courage to do so.

As demonstrated by his success in pressuring Netanyahu into accepting a cease-fire with Iran he didn't want, if Trump wanted to he could pressure Zelensky to accept peace in Ukraine on realistic terms and he could pressure Netanyahu to adhere to his excellent cease-fire deal in Gaza. That is exactly what President Trump promised when he said he wanted to be a transformational peace president and end the wars and stop new wars before they begin. While he has not done a good job of doing that since he was elected, I think his underlying strategic vision is a very good one especially when it comes to establishing a geostrategic partnership with Russia to neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance--something Dr. Peter Pry, the courageous and visionary founder of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, and I pushed hard for before his unfortunate passing.

Dr. Andrew Latham writes in the National Security Journal:

"Ukraine is no longer the poster child of democratic resistance, and the war is no longer a clean morality play. It’s a quagmire. He can either fish or cut bait. There’s no room left for theatrics. He can reel in a cold, restrained peace that aligns with American interests – or keep casting into the bloodied waters of a war that no longer serves them. History rarely offers such a clear fork in the road. But this is one. If Trump walks now – on his terms, without apology – he can still plausibly claim the mantle of realist statesman. He can say he ended a war that Biden couldn’t, refocused American power on real threats, and rejected the fantasies of the foreign policy establishment.

But if he dithers, if he escalates in order to later de-escalate, if he plays the strongman only to slouch into strategic confusion, then he becomes just another caretaker of empire, not its reformer. Walk – or own the war. Reap the benefit, or carry the burden. Because no one else is going to clean this up. Not the Europeans. Not the Ukrainians. And certainly not the bipartisan foreign policy machine that helped create this mess.

Some around Trump suggest he may greenlight another tranche of weapons – not out of conviction, but calculation. More HIMARS, more drones, maybe long-range strike systems. Why? But others – Realists, Restrainers, and even a few Reagan-era Neocons – are urging the opposite. They see this moment for what it is: a narrow window to cut the cord and pivot. To finally stop propping up a war that was never winnable on Western terms, and to walk away before the costs become irreversible. And they’re right."

US diplomacy to try to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine has failed disastrously as the Trump administration unable to get Zelensky to make even the slightest concession to achieve peace with Russia nearly six months into Trump’s second term. President Trump now faces a momentous choice. He can continue fighting the war indefinitely so that history remembers the Ukraine debacle as Trump's war and take all the blame for subsequently losing half of Ukraine to Russia when Ukraine runs out of troops to defend their frontlines and their military collapses and gets routed by Russian forces. Alternatively, he can withdraw all US support for Ukraine and pull out all our personnel, close all our bases there and end our involvement in the war now to pressure Zelensky to accept Russia’s peace terms while they are still somewhat reasonable. Then, he can pursue a strategic partnership with Russia to neutralize its military alliance with the People’s Republic of China and revolutionize the global balance of power in America' favor. It shouldn't be a hard choice if he is serious about putting America's national security first.

The Kellogg Peace Plan to End the War in Ukraine

Former Acting National Security Advisor and current US Special Envoy to Ukraine has exercised enormous influence over Trump’s Russia-Ukraine war policy and has succeeded in persuading Trump to do Zelensky’s bidding and sabotage Trump’s attempts to achieve a peaceful diplomatic settlement to end his unnecessary and unwinnable US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.

On April 21^st, Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a twenty-two-point US peace plan with our NATO and Ukrainian partners. Our NATO partners reportedly found it acceptable, but the Ukrainian representatives walked out because they refused to give up any of their maximalist peace terms including the return of all of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory and Putin’s surrender to the International Criminal Court for prosecution on war crimes Russia never committed. Subsequently, Steve Witkoff planned to travel to Moscow from May 12-16th to present this US peace plan to Russian President Vladimir Putin but Russia informed Witkoff on May 8^th that Putin was unwilling to discuss the proposal because it did not meet Russia’s minimum requirements for a final peace settlement just as I had been warning since an earlier version of it was released in November. This peace plan, which was devised by Trump’s Special Envoy to Ukraine, Lt. General Keith Kellogg, included a 30 day cease fire and a 18-mile-wide “buffer zone” which would be “controlled” by international peacekeepers, similar to an armistice agreement I proposed three years ago.

I correctly predicted last November that if Trump attempted to implement the Kellogg peace plan and refused to modify it to Russia’s satisfaction, Russia would reject it, no cease-fire would ever be achieved and it would serve to prolong the war indefinitely. Here is what i stated at the time:

The leaked neocon Kellogg-Fleitz peace plan calling for a permanent cease-fire along the current line of control, NATO troops in Ukraine patrolling the DMZ, and a twenty-year moratorium on NATO membership while the US continues to arm Ukraine to the teeth. This plan is an absolute non-starter for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is unlikely to agree to a cease-fire if the Trump administration opts to push such unfavorable terms for Russia. The Kellogg plan's main fault is that it doesn't include any incentives for Ukraine to agree to any peace agreement with Russia at all, just a cease-fire along the current line of control. The other big problem with it is that it envisions the US continuing massive arms shipments to Ukraine which would be entirely unacceptable to Russia given it has demanded that any peace plan must include Ukraine's partial demilitarization. Since that plan is unacceptable to Russia, it would just serve to prolong the war indefinitely.

Here are the specific terms of the twenty-two point Kellogg peace plan:

Permanent cessation of hostilities

1. Both sides agree that a permanent cessation of all hostilities will begin immediately from the current line of control and will remain in effect until the final exchange of territories. A 30-kilometer demilitarized buffer zone shall be established between the forces of the parties, which shall be monitored by a Joint Coordination Commission.

2. Both sides shall immediately begin technical negotiations, facilitated by the United States, with a view to achieving a peaceful settlement and a complete cessation of hostilities.

3. Both sides agree to an immediate and permanent cessation of all hostilities in all domains (air, land, sea and infrastructure).

4. Third countries facilitating the process, with US support, will develop and implement a monitoring and verification mechanism to ensure that both sides fully comply with the complete cessation of hostilities.

5. Russia will return all deported Ukrainian children and civilian prisoners, and both sides will agree to an “all for all” prisoner exchange.

6. After Russia implements the peace agreement, the US will support the resumption of the work of the NATO-Russia Council for dialogue on mutual security issues in the region.

Security guarantees for Ukraine

7. Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees, which will be provided by a specially created (ad hoc) group of European countries and willing non-European states that will invest in Ukraine's long-term security and deterrence capabilities.

8. The US will not support Ukraine's NATO bid.

9. There will be no restrictions on the size of Ukraine's Defense Forces.

10. Ukraine may continue to move towards EU membership, in accordance with full compliance with anti-corruption reforms.

Territory

11. The US de jure recognizes Russia's control over Crimea; recognition by Ukraine is not required.

12. The US de facto recognizes Russia's control over Luhansk (apparently over the Luhansk region— editor’s note).

13. The US de facto recognizes Russia's control over parts of the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Kherson regions.

14. Ukraine restores control over the territory of the Kharkiv region.

15. Russia will restore control over the territory of the Kursk region.

16. Both sides agree to establish a permanent 30-kilometer demilitarized buffer zone.

17. Ukraine will restore control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant with US monitoring and management of the plant, with electricity distributed between both sides, and (Ukraine will restore control. — editor’s note) over the Kakhovka Dam.

18. Ukraine shall have unimpeded passage along the Dnipro River and restore control over the Kinburn Spit.

Economy

19. The US and Ukraine shall implement an agreement on economic cooperation/mineral resources.

20. Sanctions imposed by the US on Russia since 2014 will be lifted after a final peaceful settlement is reached. In the event of violation of the terms of the peace agreement, all sanctions will be reimposed through the snapback mechanism.

21. Strengthening economic cooperation between the US and Russia in energy and other industries will continue, provided that Russia complies with the terms of the settlement.

22. Ukraine will be fully restored and receive financial compensation, particularly through the use of Russian sovereign assets, which will remain frozen until Russia compensates Ukraine for the losses incurred.

Implementation schedule: Representatives of Ukraine and Russia will meet next week to discuss the implementation of these framework conditions.

This latest variant of the Kellogg peace proposal contains numerous additional provisions that are unacceptable to Russia including no restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces and no limits on the capabilities of its offensive strike systems which are non-negotiable from a Russian perspective. In addition, it mandates Russia provide hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations for Ukraine, the transfer of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to US control and the return of alleged Russian-held Ukrainian civilians and children which Russia never took and is thus unable to return. Russia had signaled the parts of the plan that it deemed unacceptable shortly after the plan was shared with our NATO allies and Ukraine on April 21^st, so Putin’s rejection of the plan should have come as no surprise. However, it predictably caused Trump to lash out against Russia anyway.

Trump Declares the War Will Continue Until He Meets with Putin, Then Says Russia and Ukraine Must Negotiate an End to the War

On May 14^th, following Russia’s formal rejection of his peace plan a week before, President Trump admitted that there will be no peace deal ending the war in Ukraine until he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin The president told reporters “nothing is going to happen” on Ukraine talks “until Putin and I get together.” The two men have spoken on the phone in recent weeks, but there are no concrete plans for them to meet in person. On May 19^th, Trump had a 2-and-a-half-hour phone call with Putin likely for the purpose of discussing this peace plan with him despite the fact that Russia had rejected it. However, the only thing that came out of it was that Putin agreed to continue peace negotiations with Ukraine and to provide it with a memorandum listing the Russian conditions for a 30-day cease-fire.

The New York Post reported:

President Trump said he wants to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin as soon as possible after the top-level in-person Russia-Ukraine talks ended after less than two hours with a POW swap agreement an agreement for Russia to issues its demands for a cease-fire and with the Russians agreeing to consider a Putin-Zelensky summit but no progress to achieving a peace deal ending the war. “As soon as we can set it up,” Trump told reporters on his Middle East trip about the timeline of meeting face-to-face with Putin. After months of impasse on peace talks, Trump is saying it’s time for him to meet with Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN. “I think it’s time for us to just do it,” he told reporters as he wrapped up his trip to the Middle East today. “We’ve got to get it done,” he said of talks to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, which has been raging for three years since Russia first launched its unprovoked, full-scale invasion in 2022. When asked when he would meet with Putin, Trump said: “As soon as we can set it up.”

President Donald Trump Meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Osaka Summit in June 2019. Trump has refused to schedule a meeting with Putin since in a major departure from US diplomacy from the Cold War to 2021 where US Presidents met routinely with Russian leaders to encourage good relations and resolve conflicts, despite the fact that a summit meeting could help him achieve his goal to end the war in Ukraine.

If Trump had met with Putin right after becoming President, the war could have ended back in January as I advocated the day after he was inaugurated. Now, as he correctly indicated, the war will never end until they actually meet in person. Over two months later, there are still no US plans for Trump to meet with Putin despite repeated Russian offers to do so, suggesting that peace in Ukraine is not a major priority for President Trump.

On May 2^nd, the Trump administration announced it was ending all acting efforts to negotiate a peace deal ending the war between Russia and Ukraine and announced that a peace deal would have to be negotiated directly between Russia and Ukraine. President Trump subsequently pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to send a Ukrainian delegation to meet with the Russians in Istanbul and after initially objecting, he gave in to pressure from his EU sponsors and sent a delegation to meet with the Russians to discuss a cease-fire and peace agreement on May 16^th.

During the meeting between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul, the leader of the Russian delegation--Vladimir Medinsky--reportedly demanded Ukraine withdraw all its troops from the constitutional boundaries of the four regions, but Ukraine refused. He then said that if you don’t agree to it, Russia will demand not four regions but eight including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Odessa. He also threatened to fight Ukraine for up to twenty years until Russia’s minimum peace terms were agreed to by Kyiv.

"Medinsky said outright: we demand that you withdraw your troops from the territory of the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions, where we have only 2% of the territory left — and only then will we talk about a ceasefire and other issues. If you refuse — we can go further, to Kharkiv and to Sumy. In fact, we can fight with you forever, to the end," one of the sources said.

Interestingly, the Ukrainian delegation met with the Russians in violation of Putin’s October 2022 decree banning all peace negotiations with Russia so long as Putin remained in power which Zelensky had been claiming prevented Ukraine from participating in peace discussions with Moscow for nearly a few years now.

Signing the Istanbul Agreement is the Fastest Way to End the War in Ukraine

The same Russian negotiation team that successfully negotiated an agreement with Ukraine to end the war in March 2022 met in Istanbul on May 16^th to meet with Ukraine in the same room where they agreed to end the war over three years ago. On March 29th, 2022, Russia and Ukraine signed a preliminary agreement known as the Istanbul Agreement in which Russia agreed to withdraw all its troops from all of Ukraine's prewar territory in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality and partial demilitarization. In good faith Putin unilaterally withdrew all Russian troops from over 30% of Ukraine including Kyiv within six days after it was agreed upon to show Russia’s commitment to implementing the terms of the peace deal was serious. The final agreement ending the war was to be signed by Putin and Zelensky in Istanbul on April 9th, 2022 but Zelensky decided not to sign it under pressure by Joe Biden and Boris Johnson.

After meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin for five hours on April 11^th, Witkoff reportedly told President Trump that the easiest and fastest way to get a ceasefire was to support a strategy that would give Russia ownership of the four eastern regions of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk it annexed in September 2022. A couple of months ago, Witkoff expressed optimism that the United States would use the Istanbul Protocol Agreement as a blueprint for future peace talks. “We came very, very close to signing something, and I think we’ll be using that framework as a guidepost to get a peace deal done between Ukraine and Russia, and I think that will be an amazing day,” he said.

If Zelensky was serious about peace, all he would have to do to end the war would be to sign the Istanbul agreement which was based on Ukrainian proposed peace terms, agree to Russian proposed limits on the number and range of Ukrainian strike systems and agree to peace along the current line of control. Then, Russia would likely agree to a permanent cease-fire tomorrow. However, we know Zelensky will continue to insist hundreds of thousands more brave Ukrainian soldiers die in an unwinnable war against Russia to avoid having to schedule democratic elections which he would be sure to lose and force him to go into exile to avoid being prosecuted and imprisoned by his democratically elected successor on corruption charges.

Ukraine has already suffered over two million casualties (including 750,000 killed in action as of May 5th) in the war totaling an astonishing total of nearly seven percent of Ukraine’s current population.

According to the Kyiv Independent:

“The U.S. president, who most recently met Zelensky in Paris in December, criticized his Ukrainian counterpart for resisting Russia at the start of the invasion instead of cutting a deal. "Zelensky... shouldn’t have allowed this to happen either. He’s no angel," Trump said. "I could have made that deal so easily, and Zelensky decided that 'I want to fight,'" he commented, adding that Ukraine has been fighting against a "much bigger entity." "Putin shouldn’t have done it (launching the full-scale invasion)... and it has to stop," Trump said, claiming that Russia had lost around 850,000 soldiers while Ukraine lost 700,000.

It turns out Trump’s January 2025 estimated Ukraine casualty figure of 700,000 dead was surprisingly accurate given the Jamestown Foundation’s May 2025 estimate of 750,000 dead. This suggests that Ukraine is likely sharing its actual casualty figures with the US or else US intel can accurately estimate them even while US estimates of Russian military casualties is way off because they are derived from Ukrainian propaganda sources.

Ukraine is running out of young men to throw into the meat grinder following heavy losses and a reported 214,000 desertions resorting to press-ganging young Ukrainian men off the streets and throwing them with little training on the front lines where their life expectancy is sometimes measured not in months or years but in days. Many Ukrainian army units are exhausted having never been rotated off the frontline due to chronic troop shortages while Ukraine’s army reserves continue to run thin and their troop morale continues to crater in a war they increasingly view not only as unpopular and unwinnable but suicidal.

Meanwhile, Russia has suffered only 300,000 casualties (including 119,000 killed in action) or 0.2 percent of Russia’s population. Russia’s troops are being rotated out of the front lines regularly, enjoy higher morale, with plenty of volunteer troops willing to fight in an increasingly popular and victorious war and 18-25 million additional military age men are still available to mobilize for war. Once Ukraine’s reserves are exhausted, Russia plans to begin a general offensive to either surround Ukrainian forces on the left bank of the Dnipro River or force their withdrawal to western and central Ukraine leaving Russia in control of forty-five percent of Ukraine’s territory and allowing Ukrainian artillery to bombard Kyiv until Zelensky sues for peace.

Russian and Ukrainian delegates meeting in Istanbul on March 29, 2022 when they both initialed what has come to be known as the Istanbul Agreement. The signing ceremony was scheduled to take place in a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on April 9, 2022 formally ending the war but President Joe Biden sent then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Kyiv the day before to pressure Zelensky not to sign it and keep fighting the war indefinitely with a blank check of US and UK financial and military support.

Former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen is calling on President Trump to accept the Istanbul Agreement as the basis for peace in Ukraine. This should be accompanied by an agreement for peace along the current line of control perhaps with a few minor territorial exchanges. I have been articulating several versions of this peace plan from June 2022 to the present. Here is a link to my latest peace plan which includes a US-Russian Strategic Partnership Agreement designed to neutralize Russia’s military alliance with the PRC.

Bryen wrote in the Asia Times:

“The best place to begin is to signal a willingness to accept the Istanbul agreement reached in 2022. The Russians will try to say that the Istanbul agreement is now water under the dam, but there is a chance Putin would accept it as a starting point. He has said in many speeches that the Istanbul agreement would have ended the war and Russia would have accepted it. Obviously there are Russian demands not accounted for at Istanbul that must be taken account of by the parties. The important point is that by accepting Istanbul as a starting point, US President Donald Trump would have something “real” to start a real diplomatic process, not just a plethora of “plans” none of which is going anywhere until the starting positions change.

The third point is the nature of Ukraine’s government, which rules by decree as the Zelensky government has frozen elections and jailed, restricted or exiled opposition politicians. While it is important for Zelensky to end martial law and permit elections, an immediate step is to form a coalition government to negotiate with Russia. A coalition government spreads responsibility for any deal to all the pertinent political players, making it easier for them to make concessions. Another key benefit is that it helps protect Zelensky from accusations of a sellout. Ukraine is at an inflection point. Either it can continue and lose the war, perhaps leading to regime change and a political crisis, or it can take steps to put realistic proposals on the table, something that may require a coalition to achieve.”

If President Trump pressured Zelensky to accept such a peace deal, Russia would likely agree to a permanent cease-fire and the war could be swiftly ended on terms that Ukraine proposed and agreed shortly after the war began. Bryen’s idea for the formation of a coalition government is also a good one though Zelensky is extremely unlikely to give up his dictatorial power willingly. His fear of losing power and being prosecuted and imprisoned on corruption charges is the main reason for his decision to continue his unwinnable war against Russia indefinitely.

Russia’s Latest Cease-Fire and Peace Offer

On June 1^st, Russia provided the US with a comprehensive twelve-point peace plan and 30 day cease-fire offer as requested by the Trump administration. Here are the provisions of their peace offer:

· At the center of Russia’s proposal is a demand for international legal recognition of its sovereignty over territories annexed since 2014 and expanded during its 2022 full-scale invasion. These include Crimea, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), as well as the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Moscow calls for the complete withdrawal of all Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) and paramilitary formations from these areas.

• Permanent Ukrainian neutrality, including a formal constitutional ban on joining military alliances such as NATO or hosting any foreign military presence.

• Termination of all international agreements that conflict with these neutrality provisions.

• Legal guarantees that Ukraine will remain a non-nuclear state, with a prohibition on any development, receipt, transit or deployment of weapons of mass destruction.

• Strict limits on the size, structure, and armament of Ukrainian military forces, and the dissolution of what Russia calls “nationalist formations.”

• Full protection of rights, freedoms, and official language status for Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine.

• Legislative bans on what Russia characterizes as “glorification of Nazism” and the dissolution of nationalist organizations and parties.

• Full removal of all Western economic sanctions imposed since the start of the war.

• Mutual waivers of any claims for war-related compensation or damages.

• Amnesty for displaced persons and “political prisoners.”

• Lifting of restrictions against the Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate.

• Full restoration of diplomatic, trade, energy, transport, and other relations, including transit through third-party states.

The Russian memorandum proposed two alternative pathways toward an immediate ceasefire:

• Option 1: Complete withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Russian-controlled territories, and further pullback from Russia’s borders according to terms agreed between the two sides.

• Option 2 (Package Proposal): A more phased approach involving cessation of mobilization, halting foreign military aid to Ukraine, withdrawal of foreign military personnel, guarantees by Ukraine to refrain from sabotage and subversion against Russia, mutual amnesty for detainees, lifting of martial law, and conducting national elections within 100 days after martial law ends.

Option 1 of the Russian cease-fire proposal is very straightforward with only one condition—the same one which the Russian delegation outlined during their meeting with the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul on May 16^th which was a withdrawal of all Ukrainian military and paramilitary forces from the constitutional borders of the four regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson. Trump could threaten a cut off of US military aid including intelligence sharing to Kyiv as well as Starlink access to pressure Ukraine to withdraw from the remainder of the four mostly Russian-annexed regions with an agreement from Russia that they would not halt their advance until a peace deal was finalized. Option Two is likely unachievable because it would require the US to pressure all of its NATO allies to stop sending military aid to Ukraine and withdraw all their military personnel. Both options would culminate in the drafting, signing, and ratification of a comprehensive peace treaty, subject to endorsement by the UN Security Council.

However, the Trump administration did not even bother to issue a counterproposal in response to Russia’s specific terms such as withdrawing all Ukrainian troops but not Border Guards from the disputed regions which Russia likely would have agreed to. Once again, the administration is acting as if it holds all the cards in cease-fire and peace negotiations when in fact as President Trump has correctly stated, “Russia holds all the cards” right now and thus the only path to achieving a durable and enduring peace is to pressure Ukraine to accept peace terms minimally acceptable to the Kremlin.

President Trump claims that Putin played him, but I actually think it was Trump who played Putin who was operating under the misconception that Trump was serious when he said he was willing to negotiate a peace deal with him. Instead, Trump presented the 22-point Kellogg peace plan to Russia as a "take it or leave it" first and last offer and, once Russia formally rejected it on May 8^th, has steadfastly refused to negotiate any of its terms with Russia.

Putin has proven sincere in wanting the war to end and has been negotiating in good faith from February 2022 onward as evidenced by the Istanbul Agreement which mandated a full Russian military withdrawal from all prewar Ukrainian territory in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality outside of NATO and partial Ukrainian disarmament. Russia has negotiated in good faith and has been entirely consistent in telling Trump their minimal terms to negotiate an end to the war but Trump has fooled himself into believing that Putin would capitulate to US peace terms and that he did not need to make any concessions to achieve a peace deal.

In contrast, with regards to Russia and Iran, President Trump has proven duplicitous negotiating in bad faith ostensibly trying to negotiate peace deals while at the same time secretly planning to bomb them either directly as in the case of Iran or indirectly as in the case of Russia. Likewise, Zelensky and EU Politburo leaders have negotiated in bad faith when they have negotiated at all because they want the war to continue indefinitely. I think that Trump was sincere in wanting the war to end but only on US-imposed terms. I think Putin has proven more flexible on the terms of a negotiated compromise peace settlement than Trump has been and I think Putin would be willing to give up all his claims on additional Ukrainian territory that he does not currently control if his other terms were agreed to. Sadly, instead of pulling the US out of the war, Trump is now all in after signing what amounted to a ten-year security pact with Ukraine to fight Biden's war against Russia indefinitely to the last Ukrainian in opposition to US national security interests and in violation of his own much repeated campaign pledge to end the war in twenty-four hours after being inaugurated president.

Trump’s Broken Promises to End America’s Wars Risk a Third Impeachment

In addition to denouncing the 59% of his America First conservative voters as “stupid”, “foolish” and “weaklings” whose support he doesn’t want any more for believing the White House is engaging in a cover up of the Epstein files to protect the perpetrators who raped up to 1,000 teenage girls which he is now calling a Democrat hoax, Trump is betraying his America First conservative supporters with yet another flip-flop on the war in Ukraine. This coming on the heels of him breaking his promise to end the wars in the Middle East. His repeated decisions to cave to pressure from far-left Democrats and neocon Republicans on Ukraine make him look like another Zelensky puppet virtually indistinguishable to his predecessor--former President Joe Biden. One is left to wonder why he is continuing to break his pledges to end Biden's forever wars and do the bidding of the Deep State neocon warmongering globalists he has repeatedly claimed to despise. Meanwhile, he continues to blast Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the only foreign leader other than himself who has proven sincere in trying to end the war with a diplomatic peace agreement. It's looking increasingly like while we voted for a transformational peace President and got Geoge W Bush/Joe Biden 2.0 instead. For the first time, it appears that Trump’s broken campaign pledges are beginning to significantly erode his voting base.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA), a staunch America First conservative leader and one of President Trump’s staunches allies, has been increasingly critical of Trump’s flip-flops to the left in terms of his decision to greenlight another $10 billion in arms shipments to Ukraine after repeatedly promising to end the war on the second day of his Presidency. She is very representative of Trump’s conservative bases which has been left reeling from Trump’s increasing number of broken campaign promises.

The New Republic noted increasing conservative outrage:

"To many MAGA Republicans who support Trump for his supposed “America First” foreign policy approach, the news was aggravating. “I did not vote for this,” wrote Trump-pardoned January 6-er Derrick Evans. Natalie Danelishen, who works for a foundation that seeks to build upon Trump’s idea of “freedom cities.” “Who in the hell is telling Trump that we need to send more weapons to Ukraine?” posted the conservative comedy and political commentary duo Keith and Kevin Hodge. “So Trump just said we’re gonna support funding Ukraine’s proxy war now?” wrote “America First” influencer @TiffMoodNukes, who likened Trump’s behavior to a MAGA talking point alleging President Joe Biden was a puppet for the deep state. Many within MAGA world have been left feeling that either Trump had strung them along or, worse, that his administration is now in on the imagined cover-up. Newsmax host Todd Starnes posted, “The White House just announced they are going to send more weapons to Ukraine.… And it turns out the Epstein files were just an urban legend. I did not vote for this.” “Hey, you didn’t get the Epstein List, but at least Ukraine is getting weapons!” posted a “MAGA Activist” who goes by “Chief Trumpster.” “There was a time when I was willing to entertain the idea of ‘trust the plan,’” posted Mike Adams, a right-wing health influencer known as “Health Ranger.” “But after the Epstein files have been memory holed … and the ‘peace president’ is sending more bombs to Israel and Ukraine, and we all realize we’ve been lied to about so many things, the idea that anyone could still trust the plan is truly idiotic.”

Trump came into office pledging to end the war within twenty-four hours of becoming President but has since signed a veritable ten-year security pact with Ukraine. Trump’s decision to unnecessarily prolong Biden’s war in Ukraine, and even escalate it with additional ATACMs offensive missile shipments, represent a complete betrayal of Trump’s America First conservative voting base who elected him President based on his campaign pledge to end Biden’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, a border war being fought over Ukraine’s geopolitical alignment in which the US has no discernable national security interest. Even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not offered even one single concession to achieve a peace deal with Russia and that Trump himself has been unwilling to negotiate the terms of the US twenty-two-point peace offer provided to Russia in late April, Trump appears to be blaming Putin for refusing to agree to peace. This is very counterproductive as Putin has been working to achieve a negotiated peace settlement since the day after Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three and a half years ago. Also, Trump’s latest policy shift threatens to entirely derail his overriding grand strategic vision of forming a geostrategic partnership with Russia to permanently end all hostilities between our two great nations while greatly increasing US economic cooperation with Moscow.

If Trump continues in this foolish course of pursuing war instead of peace, not only will it increase the risk of a future direct military confrontation with Russia, but it will likely serve to further erode and demoralize his America First conservative base enabling the Democrats to seize control of Congress in the November 2026 midterm elections. That would not only stop the passage of Trump's legislative agenda, but it would subject him to a third impeachment by a Democrat-controlled US House of Representatives in 2027.

How to End the War and Neutralize the Sino-Russian Military Alliance

The only hope Trump has to end the war is to act swiftly to end all US security assistance to Ukraine including both weapons and offensive intelligence and threaten the cut off Ukraine’s Starlink access to pressure Zelensky to resign and allow democratic elections. Alternatively, he could pressure Zelensky to accept Russia’s peace terms except for Russia’s claims for additional Ukrainian territory which Russia does not currently control which is a demand that Trump cannot agree to politically without losing face. It is also very important that Trump meet with Putin directly in a summit meeting later this summer to negotiate a permanent end to the war which addresses the root causes of the conflict and implements a mutual security agreement with Russia based on the principle of indivisible security as I have long advocated.

As I have been stating for over a year, Putin would likely agree to peace along the line of control if Trump accepted all of Russia's other demands, most of which are fairly reasonable. Short of that, Putin will continue to destroy the Ukrainian army which as I noted previously has suffered catastrophic losses of over two million military casualties to date until Ukraine's frontlines collapse after which Russian forces will advance all the way to the Dnipro River largely unopposed. However, Putin could end the war much faster were he to move 200,000 or more troops to Belarus and re-invade Kyiv. Given the fact that Ukraine is nearly out of reserve troops and is unable to defend a broad new front far away from the main front in southeast Ukraine, such an offensive would likely force Zelensky to capitulate as it nearly did in March-April 2022. This has always been the solution to a quick Russian victory and if Putin hadn't unilaterally withdrawn Russian troops from thirty percent of Russian occupied territory from March 26-April 4th, 2022, the war would have ended days later with the signing of the Istanbul Agreement and peace and stability would have been restored to Europe years ago.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping pictured at one of their recent summit meetings. Over the past dozen years or so, Russia and China have deepened their military alliance posing an existential threat to the United States. US foreign policy, far from splitting them apart, has been driving them much closer together.

Russia’s military alliance with the People’s Republic of China has never been closer thanks to Biden's decision to deliberately provoke Russia into invading Ukraine. Russia and China together boast many times more operational nuclear weapons than the US both in terms of strategic and non-strategic warheads with larger ground, naval and air forces than the US and many times more nuclear capable ballistic missiles. By contrast, the US has failed to build a single nuclear warhead from scratch during the last thirty-three years during a period in which Russia and China have built several thousand with Russia able to build up to 3,000 a year. Some US nuclear warheads and delivery systems are over half a century old while Russian, Chinese and North Korean nuclear missiles are modern. Yet paradoxically, US leaders continue to delude themselves into believing that America is the world's most powerful nuclear superpower.

President Trump formulated a brilliant plan to disrupt the Sino-Russian military alliance early in his second term which included swiftly ending the war in Ukraine on terms minimally acceptable to Russia and forming a geostrategic partnership with Russia to pull Russia out of BRICS and into the Western economic orbit. Sadly, his plan quickly foundered on his foolish and unnecessarily dogmatic demand that Russia accept a thirty-day cease-fire when he should have focused on negotiating the key terms of a peace deal with Russia following which a permanent cease-fire could have been implemented.

At this point, the only way the US could neutralize the Sino-Russian military alliance is for Trump to cut aid to Ukraine and pressure Zelensky to sign a peace deal on largely Russian terms but without sacrificing another inch of Ukrainian territory. Another reason why President Trump should act immediately to halt all US weapon shipments to Ukraine and Israel is so we can rebuild our conventional military arsenal instead of continuing to follow Biden's example in unilaterally disarming the US military of tens of thousands of the weapon systems we need to fight and win a great power war. The US should also sign a mutual security agreement with Moscow withdrawing all US troops from Eastern Europe, end all sanctions and form a geostrategic partnership with Russia to effectively counter its alliance with Beijing as I have been advocating we do for the past sixteen years. Russia is an enemy of our own making. If Trump stays true to his campaign pledge, he could unmake it as an enemy, transform Russia into a geostrategic partner and permanently end the existential Russian nuclear threat to the US using my proposed peace terms as a template so we can effectively pivot to deterring Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific.

© David T. Pyne 2025

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He is the former President and current Deputy Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published in January 2026. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He also posts multiple times a day on X at @AmericaFirstCon. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

June 17th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell to discuss the latest developments with regards to Zelensky’s massive drone strikes which allegedly damaged or destroyed up to 40 Russian nuclear bombers in Siberia in his latest attempt to provoke a Russian nuclear escalation and start World War Three as well as Netanyahu’s strikes on Iran and attempt to drag the US into World War Three.

June 17th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the Israeli-Iran War, Trumps statements that the US might enter the war and bomb Iran and the chances it could escalate into World War Three.

June 18th—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss Trump’s plan to start World War Three with a nuclear-armed Iran that may cause Russia and China to join the fight as well as Trump’s decision to continue fighting Biden’s war against Russia in Ukraine indefinitely.

June 19th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss reports that Trump has approved attack plans against Iran which could escalate to World War Three and bring in Russia, China and maybe even North Korea.

June 21st—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s air and missile strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites that could escalate to World War Three.

June 23rd—Interview with COL Rob Maness (USAF Ret) on the Rob Maness Show to discuss Trump’s decision to approve plans to attack Iranian nuclear missile sites and start World War Three and Iranian threats to nuke NYC and inflict “irreparable damage on the US if we bomb them.

June 23rd—Interview with Pascal Lottaz on the Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss Trump’s apparent plan to bomb Iran and start World War Three and what he should be doing to avert it. We will also discuss the hostile neocon takeover of the Trump presidency.

June 24th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s angry reaction to Israel’s violations of his cease-fire agreement with Iran and the leak of a top secret DIA battle damage assessment that none of the three Iran nuclear sites we bombed were destroyed.

June 27th—Interview with Nazar Kotovych on the “Prove to Me You’re Alive” podcast to discuss Trump’s bombing strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites which a new DIA report says failed to destroy any of them and his new cease-fire ending the war between the US, Israel and Iran as well as the latest news regarding the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

June 27th—Interview with Harrison Smith on the American Journal to discuss the massive influence Israel wields over US politicians and US foreign policy and the need to end the US alliance with Israel to ensure we don’t end up fighting any more of their wars as we have been doing for the past two plus decades.

July 7th—Interview with David Sanders on “The Mormon Renegade” show to discuss the ramifications of President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran and the nefarious influence of his America Last Cabinet advisors who might be pushing him to restart his war with Iran and fall into Netanyahu’s trap to drag the US into World War Three.

July 9th—Interview with Afshin Rattansi on the “Going Underground” talk show to discuss Trump’s announced new weapons shipments to Ukraine, the status of peace negotiations, and the US and Israeli war in the Middle East and Gaza war cease-fire negotiations.

July 9th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s flip flop in deciding to ship Ukraine offensive and defensive weapons after his administration announced a pause on Patriot missile shipments. We will also discuss Trump’s reported decision to greenlight Sen. Lindsey Graham’s disastrous bill for secondary Russian sanctions that could virtually cut off US trade with 85% of the world’s nations if they continue to trade with the Russian Federation.

July 11th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss China’s amphibious exercises near Taiwan and their plans to blockade and/or invade Taiwan later this year or 2027 at the latest.

July 14th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s decision to send new arms shipments to Ukraine and to threaten Russia with massive new secondary economic sanctions that could break the US economy by greatly increasing the cost of living for everyday Americans.

July 15th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell to discuss the latest developments with regards to Netanyahu’s strikes on Iran and his failed attempt to drag the US into World War Three and Trump’s pivot back to putting America First with his excellent cease-fire agreement ending the US-Israeli-Iran War.

Upcoming Interviews

August 19th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell to discuss the latest developments with regards to Trump’s latest moves in unnecessarily prolonging and escalating the war in Ukraine and how damaging that may prove to GOP chances to retain control of the House and Senate in the November 2026 mid-term election.