#325: Why Russia’s 28 Points Will Fail: Ukraine Has Agency & Support

There has been some excitement about these 28 points, the alleged peace plan. But we’ve already seen pushback, and it seems to be much ado about not much. It has been quite a few interesting and frustrating days. In my case, it’s mostly been an issue for my blood pressure. I’m sure in Ukraine, the feeling was even more on edge.

What happened? It’s really strange how this all happened. We have this 28-point document that claims to be a peace plan that was worked on by Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, and it seems to have been leaked like some kind of test balloon. Then eventually Trump acknowledged that it exists. He had someone talk in Ukraine with Zelensky and leadership, and then even said, “Well, you know, you have till Thursday and you have to accept something.”

I understand the frustration. Every day Russia is pounding Ukraine. Every day this means destruction and suffering. It looks really, really painful and bad, and it is bad. At the same time, people are fixated on Russia in Pokrovsk and making some other moves also in the Sumy area. So it seems Russia is advancing, but the reality is as usual more complex.

Russia is really not advancing as they thought they would. Pokrovsk is being destroyed. That’s for certain because everywhere Russia is going, there’s destruction. But Ukraine seems to be using that city almost like a black hole for the Russian army. At the same time, Ukraine is, as some other people say, kinetically sanctioning Russia, meaning destroying Russian oil and gas capacity. And Russia doesn’t seem to know what to do about it.

Yes, Russia keeps inflicting pain and suffering, especially on the civilian population. Yes, Ukrainian soldiers are also suffering. So are Russian soldiers, but they are the aggressor. But it doesn’t seem that Russia is winning here. I don’t want to say that Ukraine is winning because of all the destruction, but Russia not winning kind of means that Ukraine keeps standing.

And this is actually interesting in this plan because it says ostentatiously that Ukrainian sovereignty should be maintained, which means Russia has lost. Russia has worked towards destroying Ukrainian sovereignty, which it is not achieving, which means it’s a loss.

Now, there are other points in this 28-point plan that are just a rehashing of the same old stuff, the same old lies, the same old war aims that Russia wants to achieve.

Russia really – and when I say Russia, I mean the Russian government and Russian politics, and I don’t mean every single Russian. So when I say Russia, I mean shorthand. Russia seems to believe that Zelensky is weakened now because of that corruption scandal. Well, the corruption scandal doesn’t look good, but actually the government in Ukraine is going against corruption. And so far Zelensky isn’t implicated. And here’s the kicker: Should he be implicated, then we’ll have another politician in Ukraine taking over, because Ukraine is not Russia.

I mean, I could imagine Vitali Klitschko or anybody else, even Poroshenko, waiting in the wings in case Zelensky falls. I don’t believe he’ll fall, but you never know. But I do believe his character is not one that favors corruption. I could be wrong. But this is the key problem here: Why does Russia keep manipulating Trump to solve its Ukraine problem?

It’s because of this belief that Ukraine doesn’t have agency, that Europe doesn’t have agency, that we are still living somehow in a simplified version of the Cold War world in which you have Russia or then the Soviet Union and the United States as the two big superpowers. And that’s it. And then everybody has to eventually fall in line. And not only that, that behind even every European action stands the secret influence of the United States.

Now that is ludicrous. Nowadays, yes, Europe relies on the United States, but not because the US is manipulating Europe. It’s just because Europe has preferred to spend its money and resources on other things, namely its social welfare states. It has been very convenient for European countries to not have to spend that much on defense and global political influence creation and to just let the United States do it.

Europe is not in a position it’s in because of innate weakness, but because of calculated freeloading, you could say. Just because Trump says it doesn’t mean it’s not true. Obama complained about it. Biden complained about it. Europe very comfortably has been hiding behind American defense policy. And the United States has also been enjoying, as long as it could, providing this umbrella because it has increased American influence.

What some people on the America First platform don’t understand is this extended foreign policy influence benefits the United States. So when some people say America first, America only, that means you’re limiting American influence, which means also America will not be serviced by that agenda. But that’s a different conversation.

Since the start of the war, since the hot phase of the war, Europeans have woken up, and Russia has not noticed, apparently. Ukraine has woken up, too. I mean, Ukraine already woke up since the Maidan revolution. That’s why it happened. But this idea that the American political influence is behind everything happening in Europe and Ukraine has been the key mistake of Russian politics since the very beginning.

We’ve seen how the reaction now to the 28-point plan mimicked the reaction to every attempt of Putin’s to manipulate Ukraine into capitulation. Demanding of Ukraine to surrender the remainder of Donbas, where the real fortifications lie – fortifications Russia has not been able to crack since the beginning of the war in 2014. That’s a non-starter for Ukraine. Letting bygones be bygones and all Russian crimes not be punished – it’s also a non-starter.

There are some things in there that look okay, but the refusal of NATO membership for Ukraine? Russia can’t demand this. NATO is not a threat to Russia. Has never been. Russia knows it. It’s always been a lie. The only thing NATO has done to Russia is stand in the way of Russian aggression. So NATO being in there as a point, the Russian Orthodox Church, basically the KGB extension church – that this is in the plan shows you this is a Russian plan. This is just Russian manipulation.

And like all these attempts, this will fail because behind this again is the belief that there is no true Ukrainian agency. There’s no true European agency. This is all just American manipulation.

Now, the United States is the most powerful country in the world. It’s the richest country in the world. But anybody who knows anything about American politics, which at this point is probably everybody on the planet because everybody looks at what is going on there, knows that America can do one thing very, very well: focus on itself.

The idea that somehow this is just some kind of attempt to have a puppet regime in Ukraine that serves American interests – that’s the Russian way of thinking. It’s not the American way of thinking. At least not anymore.

Why am I saying that? Here’s the evidence. The United States withdrew from Afghanistan, reduced its presence in Iraq, didn’t keep working with Gaddafi, but supported the French plan to get rid of Gaddafi. What a foolish thing to do. The United States has not known how to play the larger picture in a really sustainable way. It’s just not really American politics. The United States has tried to exert influence in Latin America. There is the Monroe Doctrine, but even that is not really working.

So if you just look at it from the effects American policy has had to create or manipulate even the reality around it, you see its failure on the American continent because it’s simply not a policy style that aligns very well with American politics.

Russia is different. This idea that great powers should manipulate everything around them is pursued with much more and has been pursued with much more commitment by the Russian side. But it is failing. It is failing because Russia is running out of money.

The United States is also losing this kind of support around the world to a certain degree, but largely because of policy blunders and again a lack of true, you could say, of true imperial commitment. If the United States were an empire, it would be the weirdest-looking empire ever. The United States knows it’s best served if it governs through soft power.

That is too a little in danger now under Trump because you could say that Trump underestimates how people perceive him around the world, and his style is different. Let’s say it like that.

But here’s why this plan is failing. Ukraine cannot give up its fortresses. Ukraine has developed even long-range weapons on its own. Yes, if Ukraine were to lose American intelligence sharing, that wouldn’t be good. But it was such a large soft power catastrophe when it happened last time that I don’t think the Americans will go for it.

As long as Russia keeps pounding Ukrainian cities and annoying European partners, the United States will be forced to support Ukraine. It just doesn’t look good because it would make the US look even less powerful.

The Russian loss of life in Pokrovsk and other areas is not sustainable. It’s not, especially given that Russian finances look the way they are. And even within Russia, the leadership acknowledges that.

So what is there to do? I do prefer an American president who in principle wants to wage peace rather than war. I do appreciate that. It has to be done in the right way though. It is better than an American president who would want to wage war. I would argue that for instance the Venezuela situation is about reducing Russian influence there. I may be wrong but I don’t believe this is leading to a war. I just don’t see that. I see this as an operation that’s exerting influence and making threats, but no American wants to invade Venezuela. That would be no. I just don’t see that.

So, what we have to look for now is to keep supporting Ukraine, to really watch what is happening internally in Russia because that’s where the end of Russia as we know it now really will begin. There are no battlefield successes that are actual real successes. Everywhere where Russia advances, there’s destruction. None of this is a win for Russia.

The loss of life for Russia is immense. The loss of finances is immense. The loss of the ability to do business even in the near or medium future is immense. And several European countries have already stepped up to say no, we’re going to keep supporting Ukraine. Without a new European alliance, without Ukrainian support, this plan leads nowhere.

So Ukraine will try to keep working with the Americans. If not, it’ll work with the Europeans. It’ll also defend itself if it has to. Because every advance of Russia means nothing good for Ukraine. Ukrainians know that they will not give up. They will not surrender. If anything, the danger in this plan is if the United States pursues this, is more to the relationship between the US and Ukraine and the US and Europe and the US and the world.

So, we’ve already today seen that President Trump has walked back the Thursday deadline. We’ve already seen how people talk about, okay, this is the beginning of maybe some negotiation. Yeah. We’ve seen that game.

Why this has happened now, to conclude, is Russia is losing. Russia pretends not to lose. Russia wants to project strength and try to save itself diplomatically because it cannot win militarily or even economically.

So what is there to do? We need to help Ukraine minimize death, minimize civilian suffering as much as possible, stand by it, support it, and show Russia that it cannot win, that it has to lose, has to withdraw, and that Ukraine needs to be compensated for what has been lost. That’s the only path forward for a sustainable future. And I wish it was easier. We all wish it was easier, but that’s where we are.

Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!