More than a real peace plan, that put in the field of the Trump administration for Ukraine is a draft of the negotiating platform to force Kiev and Moscow to sit at a table. A first step, one would say. But where?

The American proposal, ventilated by environments close to General Keith Kellogg, does not promise definitive solutions. On the contrary: it was born with the awareness that peace is not on the horizon. The more modest goal is to cease the lasting fire, waiting for the geopolitical context – or perhaps a Russian internal collapse – it offers better conditions for a stable resolution. Basically: freeze the war, without closing it.

Three areas, two guarantees, a respite

The plan, still sketched, divides Ukraine into three areas: all the territories west of Dnipro would be placed under the armed protection of a coalition of “willing” European countries, now identified in France and the United Kingdom. For those territories, a defense commitment equivalent to Article 5 of NATO would take place.

The territories currently occupied would remain under Russian control. The residual territories, between the Dnipro and the front line, would remain under exclusive Ukrainian control.

The front line would turn into a demarcation line, with the possibility – not everywhere – of a smilitized band up to 30 kilometers wide, supervised by UN observers and light forces of third countries, such as India, Nigeria or Brazil.

Not forces of peace but deterrent forces

In this scheme, the Americans no longer speak of “Peacekeepers”, but of cleansing forces: combat troops, located in depth, with the task of fading – or avenged – every possible new Russian offensive. A direct call to the Cold War and NATO in West Germany.

The plan, in its unstable balance, has a value: no one claims to pleasure. But perhaps, for this reason, it could prove credible.

Ukraine and Russia would each obtain enough to sell the truce as an internal victory: Kiev would keep sovereignty and guarantees on western Ukraine, with a view of Euro-Atlantic integration; Moscow would keep control of the occupied territories and a more defensible “border”.

Nothing would be definitive. And this, for some, is a value. For others, the real problem.

The node of sanctions

The real critical point, the one on which the future of the plan will be played, is the question of sanctions. If the West should remove them, Russia – economically strengthened – could return to office in a few years, affecting those areas not covered by the European military guarantee. If, on the other hand, the sanctions were maintained, Moscow would risk a slow economic collapse, making it easier – one day – the peaceful reintegration of the occupied territories.

All the rest, at the moment, remains in the shade: the management of the airspace, the fate of the refugees, the reconstructions, the Crimea. Issues postponed to an indefinite “then”.

A realistic plan. Too?

The American proposal – however vague – has a merit that the other peace initiatives did not have: starts from the principle that the conflict cannot be resolved now. And therefore it should be frozen, contained, made manageable.

For Kiev, it could be a tactic truce, useful for gaining time in view of a Russian collapse: first military, then cheap. For Moscow, an opportunity to stabilize the front and play exhaustion.

For Europe, a formula to keep the chaos out. And perhaps this is precisely the most “Trumpian” aspect of the truce: not the search for peace, but of useful stability. Even if temporary. Even if fragile. Even if unjust.

The situation on the field

The purely military situation is increasingly serious for the Russians and increasingly promising for Ukrainians, especially on the air field: based on the current trend of development of Ukrainian and western support, it will be possible to reach Russian military collapse in much shorter times than the economic collapse reachable by diplomatic by keeping the penalties. However, what must be remembered, is that both Europe and America intend to avoid at any cost that Russia achieves a social collapse, whose catastrophic consequences would submerge the entire continent of refugees and force scary military spending to stabilize the Russian Federation.

I venture to predict that the Ukrainians could agree to treat on the basis of the platform on display above, probably in order to prolong the negotiations long enough to be reached in the meantime to the Russian military collapse, with the possible intent to accept the agreement and wait for the economic one where the military one did not occur quite soon.