The US says Ukraine should accept the settlement it has negotiated with Moscow, so everyone can get on with building “a better Ukraine.” That’s the right goal, but if the deal is written as reported, it wouldn’t be achievable.

Although the Trump administration’s proposal hasn’t been published, a report in the Daily Telegraph says it consists of seven main points. The top two are revealing: an immediate ceasefire, followed by direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv.

So, this isn’t the grand peace deal US officials say it is, rather an acceptance of Russian terms for the unconditional ceasefire Donald Trump proposed more than a month ago. Negotiations on a full settlement were supposed to follow, but the administration is so eager to get something done that it appears to have granted most of Russia’s war demands in advance.

These include a guarantee that Ukraine will never join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; that the US will recognize Crimea, which the Kremlin annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as sovereign Russian territory; that President Vladimir Putin’s forces will retain control of virtually all other Ukrainian lands they have seized by force since then; and that the US would lift economic sanctions.

There’s little here for Kyiv, except some minor territorial........

© Bloomberg