Statements of position

Ukraine Solidarity Network (US)

Oppose Trump’s Surrender Plan for Ukraine

(November 26, 2025) Imperialist bullying is rarely so open and brazen. Donald Trump demanded last week that Ukraine accept his surrender plan for Ukraine by Thanksgiving Day, November 27, or lose what little remains of US support for Ukraine, which is the sharing of satellite intelligence about Russian military positions and the sale of arms to Ukraine via European buyers. Trump stopped all other military and economic aid to Ukraine when he returned to office in January.

Trump Always Chickens Out when it comes to threatened pressure on Russia. All the pressure has been on Ukraine to capitulate. Trump’s so-called “peace” plan gave him the excuse to not enact the secondary sanctions on countries buying oil from the Russian oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft that were scheduled to go into effect on November 21.

Trump’s new plan is the fourth iteration of basically the same so-called peace plan that Trump has proposed this year. The plan supports Russian war aims and withdraws all US support from Ukraine. This version was negotiated between US and Russian representatives without Ukrainians present. It is being presented to Ukraine as a take-it-or-leave-it done deal. Among the provisions in its 28 points are:

• Ukraine disarms. Its military forces are cut back to 600,000, or 40% of its current forces. Russian forces in the Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine have no limits.
• Ukraine can have no foreign troops on Ukrainian land. Russia’s deployment of North Korean and foreign mercenary forces in Russian-occupied Ukrainian lands is not restricted.
• Ukraine can receive no arms and military assistance from outside Ukraine. Russia’s continuing receipt of arms from Iran and North Korea and essential components for military equipment from China is not restricted.
• Russia’s war of aggression is rewarded with recognition by Ukraine and the US as Russian territory of lands taken by force, plus a bonus reward of 2,500 square miles of Donbas lands that are now under Ukrainian control. Unacknowledged in the “peace” plan is that this land transfer will put an additional 250,000 Ukrainians under Russian occupation on top of the more than 3 million Ukrainians already under Russia’s repressive rule in the currently occupied territories.
• Russia gets amnesty for its war crimes, starting with the supreme war crime of aggression from which flows all other war crimes, as the Nuremberg Military Tribunal proclaimed in 1946 and became enshrined in international law, from the United Nations Charter of 1946 to the 1998 Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court. The International Criminal Court currently has arrest warrants out for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Children’s Rights Commissioner for the war crime of abducting of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia and for four top Russian military commanders for the war crimes of deliberately targeting bombs at civilians and civilian infrastructure far from the frontlines and for the detention, torture, rape, and execution of Ukrainian POWs and civilians loyal to Ukraine living in the occupied territories. The amnesty would cover the Russian FPV (First Person View) drone operators who conduct “human safaris” to murder Ukrainian civilians in cities and villages near the frontlines and boast about it in the snuff films they post in social media online.
• Rather than saying “Russia will not invade neighboring countries,” the plan says “Russia is expected not to invade neighboring countries, and NATO will not expand further.” The so-called peace plan is full of such ambiguities and loopholes favorable to Russia.
• “A dialogue between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, will be held to address all security issues.” The supreme commander of NATO is American and the US is now allied with Russia. This “dialogue” would be one-sided with Ukraine excluded.
• Sanctions on Russia will be lifted and the US and Russian oligarchs will resume business with each other.
• “US$100 billion of frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts for Ukraine’s reconstruction and investment. The United States will receive 50% of the profits from this initiative.” It is all about the money with Trump, not social justice, human rights, or international law.
• “A joint US-Russia security working group will be established to facilitate and ensure implementation of all provisions of this agreement.” Ukraine is again excluded, as are its European allies.
• “Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days.” This appeals to Russia’s rhetoric about “denazification,” i.e. regime change to a Russian puppet. Free and fair elections in Russia are not part of the deal.
• No ceasefire until this final agreement is signed by Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine has been calling for a ceasefire to set the conditions for productive negotiations toward a sustainable peace settlement. Russia insists on a final settlement before a ceasefire. This peace plan affirms Russia’s position.
• The agreement’s “implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by a Peace Council chaired by President Donald J. Trump.” This provision is like the Board of Peace chaired by Trump for his Gaza “peace” plan.

Trump’s 28-point plan for Ukraine is much like his 20-point plan for Gaza. Neither enforces international law, protects the victims, or holds the perpetrators of colonial aggression and occupation accountable. Both punish the victims and reward the aggressors. Both exclude the colonized from governance in the occupied territories. With their failure to exercise their veto when the UN Security Council adopted the Gaza foreign occupation plan, Russia and China became complicit in the colonial occupation of Gaza. Now Russia, its silent partner China, and the US are carving up Ukraine among themselves for imperialist plunder. Both deals have characteristically Trumpian pre-occupations with real estate development and business deals. Palestine is slated to be developed as a new Riviera for affluent foreign tourists, not indigenous Palestinians. Ukraine is slated to become a source of cheap and ultra-exploited labor, minerals and fossil fuels extraction, and fuels pipeline transit while the US and Russian oligarchs make money in Russia in, as the Trump plans says, “the spheres of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centers, Arctic rare-earth mining projects, and other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities.”

The Ukraine Solidarity Network (USN) denounces this attempt to impose a settlement that is not acceptable to the Ukrainian people. USN continues to support the right of the Ukrainian people to self-determination and to decide for themselves what are acceptable terms for a peace deal.

USN will continue to build moral, political, and material support for the people of Ukraine in their resistance to Russia’s invasion, to its occupation of Ukrainian lands, and to its brutal rule over people in the Russian-occupied territories. USN will continue to support Ukraine’s war of resistance, its right to determine the means and objectives of its own struggle, and its right to obtain the weapons it needs from any available source.

• We demand the full and complete withdrawal of Russian troops from all of Ukraine..
• We support the armed and unarmed resistance of Ukrainians against the Russian invasion.
• We support economic sanctions against Russia’s war machinery, including its political, military, and economic elite, its access to the international financial system, its imports of weapons-related technology, and its exports of fossil fuels that fund and fuel Russia’s war machine.*
• We demand that all Russians incarcerated for war resistance and political dissent be freed.
• We demand that the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children kidnapped to Russia and Belarus be returned to Ukraine.
• We demand that the tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians from Russian-occupied territories incarcerated for opposition to the occupation be released and returned to Ukraine.
• We support asylum in the US for Ukrainians, Russians, Belorussians, Palestinians, Sudanese, Haitians, Venezuelans, Afghans, and all people seeking refuge from political repression and war.
• We oppose amnesty for Russian war criminals.
• We demand the cancellation of all of Ukraine’s illegitimate and unjust foreign debts.
• We demand the confiscation of Russian assets abroad to be used to support Ukraine’s military self-defense, social services, and post-war reconstruction.
• We demand that Russia pay reparations to fund a full post-war reconstruction of Ukraine..
• We oppose the US policy of imposing a neoliberal economic agenda on Ukraine today and for its post-war reconstruction.

The Ukrainians’ struggle for self-determination, democracy and social justice will continue. We support the political struggles of Ukrainian trade unions, women’s organizations, environmental initiatives, and progressive political organizations to reverse the neoliberal anti-labor and anti-social policies of the Ukrainian government, to expand social, labor, and democratic rights, to clean up public corruption, and to implement a just and ecological reconstruction of Ukraine.

We will continue to build material aid and public education campaigns linking trade unions, civic organizations, and progressive political organizations in the US with their counterparts in Ukraine.

We urge all opponents of imperialism to join us.

• The question of sanctions is complicated and controversial among activists committed to Ukraine’s struggle. It’s especially important in the US that we do not accommodate to the predatory politics of the imperialist US state. The Ukraine Solidarity Network will be discussing these issues as the betrayal of Ukraine unfolds in collaboration with our Ukrainian comrades whose lives and national freedom are on the line.

Comité Ukraine Suisse

Poutine ne veut pas la paix, car la guerre lui est indispensable

(Novembre 24, 2025) L’armée et le peuple ukrainiens protègent les peuples européens contre le régime poutinien depuis maintenant presque quatre ans, depuis ce funeste 24 février 2022 qui les a vu résister à la machine de guerre russe qui pensait prendre Kyiv et faire tomber la démocratie en quelques jours. Depuis ce moment, nous nous rendons compte chaque jour davantage que cette résistance ne concerne pas que l’Ukraine mais tout le continent. Sans elle, Poutine aurait poursuivi de pareilles « opérations militaires spéciales » contre les États baltes, la Moldavie, la Roumanie, la Pologne, etc.

Poutine et sa clique n’arrêteront leurs guerres que lorsqu’ils auront été contraints de quitter le pouvoir. Seule une défaite russe dans la guerre contre l’Ukraine le permettra. L’existence d’une société civile ukrainienne vivante, comme le démontre encore sa lutte présente contre la corruption, constitue en outre un contre-exemple fâcheux pour le régime tyrannique au pouvoir à Moscou. Depuis 2022, et même depuis 2014 et la révolution de Maïdan qui avait chassé du pouvoir Victor Ianoukovitch, l’autocrate inféodé au Kremlin et que ce dernier avait placé à la présidence, n’importe quel observateur attentif de la politique russe sait bien que les guerres successives lancées par Poutine n’ont pas d’autre objectif que son maintien au pouvoir. Comme dans tous les régimes tyranniques, la situation économique et sociale catastrophique de la Russie ne lui laisse qu’une manière de le faire : en fantasmant perpétuellement de nouveaux ennemis et en multipliant les agressions militaires. Si l’Ukraine tombe, non seulement aucun pays d’Europe ne sera à l’abri, mais le démantèlement accéléré du droit international de ces dernières années sera parachevé.

L’« accord de cessez-le-feu » présenté par l’administration américaine ignore totalement cela, en prétendant que des concessions – et celles-ci semblent énormes, pour ce que nous en savons – amadoueront Poutine et le convaincront de se concentrer désormais sur le bien-être de sa population plutôt que de l’envoyer se faire exécuter dans les steppes ukrainiennes avec un matériel obsolète et défectueux. Ce que les États-Unis proposent n’est rien d’autre qu’une capitulation de l’Ukraine qui n’aura pour seule conséquence que d’encourager le tyran du Kremlin à de nouvelles invasions, car on lui aura montré que les démocraties sont faibles et lâches.

Il est faux de croire que la Russie est en train de gagner la guerre. Elle a déjà subi d’innombrables défaites, à chaque fois que les soldats et soldates ukrainiennes ont résisté alors que cela semblait impossible, contre un adversaire plus nombreux et alors que leurs alliés ne livraient les armements nécessaires qu’au compte-goutte. Après presque quatre ans de guerre, nous voyons bien que les demandes des premiers jours étaient en définitive les plus réalistes : un parapluie aérien, des livraisons d’armes massives et un blocus total contre la Russie. Si cela avait été fait en 2022, Poutine ne serait probablement plus au pouvoir et nous n’assisterions pas tétanisés aux sautes d’humeur d’un apprenti dictateur qui, depuis la Maison Blanche, veut imposer à l’Ukraine une défaite qu’elle n’a pas subi par les armes. Puisque le crédit diplomatique des États-Unis est désormais réduit à néant par la faute de son président, il reste à l’Europe – dont la Suisse fait partie, n’en déplaise aux poutinolâtres locaux – à bâtir une véritable solidarité avec l’Ukraine. En plus d’une intégration économique aussi poussée que possible, cela doit également signifier une coopération militaire renforcée, au sein de laquelle d’ailleurs les autres armées européennes auront sans doute davantage à apprendre de l’Ukraine qu’à lui enseigner. Le peuple ukrainien ne s’est pas battu en vain. En plus de gagner une reconnaissance des démocrates du monde entier, il a montré qu’il ne fallait pas s’agenouiller devant un tyran, ni faiblir dans son combat. Quoi qu’il se passe ces prochaines semaines, il restera l’un des grands exemples de résistance de ce premier quart de siècle et une inspiration décisive face à la montée mondiale des pouvoirs autoritaires.

Alliance pour la république écologique et sociale (France)

(English below)

La crise ukrainienne vient de connaître un nouveau rebondissement dramatique. Trump s’est adressé vendredi 21 novembre au président ukrainien pour lui présenter un nouvel ultimatum. L’Ukraine est sommée d’accepter un nouveau « plan de paix », élaboré conjointement par les représentants des présidents russe et états-unien.

Les conditions déterminées par les deux puissances de l’arc réactionnaire sont une véritable provocation, qui manifeste leur mépris absolu du droit des peuples et des principes du droit international. Parmi les 28 points de ce texte, on peut souligner en particulier la cession du Donbass, la réduction des forces armées ukrainiennes, le refus de l’Ukraine d’adhérer à l’OTAN et l’interdiction du déploiement de troupes de l’Alliance sur le territoire de l’Ukraine.

Ces conditions sont une atteinte manifeste à la souveraineté du peuple ukrainien. Le pouvoir poutinien est récompensé pour sa guerre d’agression. Trump entérine d’ailleurs son renoncement aux principes de l’ONU, en exposant avec cynisme à Zelensky que l’Ukraine n’a pas « d’atout maître » et qu’à un moment donné, elle devra accepter quelque chose, d’autant plus que « l’hiver s’annonce rigoureux ». Ce faisant, il exige de l’Ukraine une véritable capitulation, en faisant planer la menace d’un arrêt de l’aide militaire apportée par les Etats-Unis.

En acceptant ce chantage, la communauté internationale admettrait officiellement qu’il est possible de régler les conflits par l’usage de la loi du plus fort, et que les crimes de guerre peuvent être un moyen utile pour atteindre des objectifs de puissance. Le plan prévoit en effet la levée des sanctions contre la Russie, le retour de la Russie dans les sommets du G8 et l’amnistie pour les crimes de guerre.

L’urgence est donc de mettre en échec le plan poutino-trumpien. Cet impératif ne saurait être porté par les seuls Etats et gouvernements européens. Il nécessite le soutien d’une mobilisation populaire puissante, en Europe et au-delà, à l’appel de toutes les forces attachées au droit des peuples à l’autodétermination, à la démocratie, à la justice et à la liberté.

Fidèle à ses principes, l’APRES condamne la collusion entre Trump et Poutine. Elle renouvelle son plein soutien à la résistance du peuple ukrainien contre la guerre d’agression, à la mobilisation des organisations syndicales, des salarié.es, des jeunes, des féministes, qui se battent à la fois pour défendre leurs droits, contre la corruption et contre l’envahisseur russe.

Elle appelle les dirigeants européens à s’opposer à la domination exercée par les Etats-Unis et à l’agression russe, et à redoubler leurs efforts pour le plein rétablissement de la souveraineté ukrainienne et pour le respect des principes du droit international.

Publié le 27 novembre 2025

Alliance for an Ecological and Social Republic (APRES)

The Ukrainian crisis has just taken a dramatic new turn. On Friday, November 21, Trump addressed the Ukrainian president to present him with a new ultimatum. Ukraine is being ordered to accept a new “peace plan,” jointly drafted by representatives of the Russian and US presidents.

The conditions set by the two powers of the reactionary arc are a real provocation, demonstrating their utter contempt for the rights of peoples and the principles of international law. Among the 28 points in this text, we can highlight in particular the cession of Donbass, the reduction of Ukrainian armed forces, Ukraine's refusal to join NATO, and the prohibition of the deployment of Alliance troops on Ukrainian territory.

These conditions are a clear violation of the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people. Putin's regime is being rewarded for its war of aggression. Trump is also confirming his renunciation of the principles of the UN by cynically telling Zelensky that Ukraine has no “trump card” and that at some point it will have to accept something, especially since “winter is coming.” In doing so, he is demanding that Ukraine effectively surrender, threatening to cut off US military aid.

By accepting this blackmail, the international community would officially admit that it is possible to resolve conflicts by using the law of the strongest, and that war crimes can be a useful means of achieving power objectives. The plan provides for the lifting of sanctions against Russia, Russia's return to the G8 summits, and amnesty for war crimes.

The urgent task is therefore to defeat the Putin-Trump plan. This imperative cannot be carried out by European states and governments alone. It requires the support of a powerful popular mobilization, in Europe and beyond, at the call of all forces committed to the right of peoples to self-determination, democracy, justice, and freedom.

True to its principles, APRES condemns the collusion between Trump and Putin. It renews its full support for the Ukrainian people's resistance against the war of aggression, and for the mobilization of trade unions, workers, young people, and feminists who are fighting to defend their rights, against corruption, and against the Russian invader.

It calls on European leaders to oppose US domination and Russian aggression, and to redouble their efforts to fully restore Ukrainian sovereignty and respect for the principles of international law.

November 27, 2025

Comité Français du Réseau Européen de Solidarité avec Ukraine

NO PEACE WITHOUT UKRAINE! NO PEACE AGAINST UKRAINE!

On 21 November, Donald Trump proposed a 28-point "peace plan". It appears to have been written in Russia. This plan reiterates the main demands made by Russia since spring 2022, including: • de facto recognition of the annexation of Crimea, the entire Donbass region, including territories not conquered by Russian troops, and the freezing of the borders in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson; • the demilitarisation of Ukraine by reducing its military forces to a minimum and prohibiting Ukraine from joining NATO; • the absence of security guarantees for Ukraine, other than "it is expected that Russia will not invade neighbouring countries (...)"; no UN or UN-approved European coalition troops could be stationed in Ukraine to guarantee a ceasefire and respect for borders; • the lifting of sanctions against Russia, its return to the G8 and a full amnesty for war crimes, with the parties agreeing not to make any claims or examine any complaints in the future! With consummate cynicism, point 1 of the plan states: "The sovereignty of Ukraine will be reffirmed." But what sovereignty can there be when, in defiance of international law, the aggressor state,Russia, is legitimised in its territorial conquests, which constitute a war crime? What sovereignty can there be when the guarantors of security are those who flouted the 1994 Budapest Accords, renewed in 2009 as part of the START treaties protecting Ukraine from any aggression in exchange for its denuclearisation? Like a triumphant predator, Trump is taking advantage of the situation to demand the proceeds from frozen Russian assets, which will be invested, and is asking Europe for $100 billion for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Trump issued an ultimatum to President Zelensky to sign this plan which, despite its hypothetical modifications, is nothing more than a capitulation to the imperialist interests of Trump and Putin. For almost four years now, Ukrainians have been fighting for their sovereignty and for freedom of political, economic, diplomatic and military choice. They are also fighting for their social gains and rights and against corruption. These are the trade unions, social organisations, feminist collectives and youth groups that the French Committee of the RESU supports in their struggles. A just and lasting peace must take into account these demands of the Ukrainian people, and it is up to Ukraine, with the support of its allies, to negotiate. All forces committed to the right of peoples to self-determination must mobilise popular support in Europe and around the world to reject the diktat of Trump and Putin and their accomplices. No peace without Ukraine, no peace against Ukraine! Paris, November 24

Protests

Brussels Une manifestation d'urgence contre le chantage du ‘plan de paix’ que l'administration Trump veut imposer à l'Ukraine, lundi 24 novembre à Bruxelles

Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Scotland

Un collectif d'activistes ukrainiens et de sympathisants belges organise une manifestation urgente le lundi 24 novembre à 17h30. Rassemblement face à l'ambassade des Etats-Unis, 31 avenue des Arts, 1000 Bruxelles.

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Voici l'appel pour le rassemblement:

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L'Europe a sa dignité, et notre sécurité ne peut être négociée dans notre dos.

Aujourd'hui, Washington et Moscou discutent de l'avenir de l'Europe comme si nous n'étions pas à la table des négociations. Pire encore, ils envisagent un plan de « paix» qui oblige l'Ukraine à abandonner ses positions défensives et répartit les avoirs russes gelés en Europe comme s'il s'agissait de monnaies d'échange. C'est inacceptable pour l'Europe, pour la Belgique et surtout pour l'Ukraine, qui défend notre continent depuis près de 12 ans.

Soyons clairs :

Ce n'est pas la paix. C'est la voie vers une nouvelle guerre.

Nous avons déjà connu cela : Munich en 1938, lorsque la Tchécoslovaquie a été contrainte de céder des territoires en échange de promesses vaines. Les concessions faites aux agresseurs n'ont jamais apporté la paix, ni à l'époque, ni en 2025.

Forcer l'Ukraine à faire des concessions revient à forcer l'Europe à faire des concessions. Cela donne à la Russie un drapeau de victoire et le feu vert pour continuer à étendre son empire et à menacer nos voisins, y compris les pays de l'UE et de l'OTAN.

L'Europe doit se réveiller. Nous devons reprendre le contrôle de notre propre sécurité : approuver le prêt de réparation, renforcer la défense aérienne commune et fournir à l'Ukraine tout ce dont elle a besoin pour se protéger et protéger notre continent.

Rejoignez-nous pour montrer que Bruxelles soutient l'Ukraine, défend la dignité de l'Europe et s'oppose fermement à tout accord conclu dans notre dos.

Washington, November 23

In Washington, a rally was held for the "eliminating the regime" of Trump and against the peaceful plan for Ukraine, which, according to the protesters, involves significant concessions to Russia (see photos at top of page and below).

CNBC is reporting this.

The action started near the Lincoln Memorial, where participants listened to speeches and performances by musicians. The protesters then marched along the National Alley.

In addition to demands to remove Trump from power, protesters have expressed disagreement with the new US peace plan to end Russia's war against Ukraine, which they say involves significant Russian concessions.

Analysis

I was wrong. It's worse than Munich.

Sometimes the evil has no historic parallel

Colin Long

Nov 23, 2025

I was wrong. Sometimes events move so quickly that you have to reconsider what you wrote only a day or so before. Yesterday I used the Munich Agreement that surrendered the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany in 1938 as an analogy for the Trump-Putin 28 point “peace plan”. After getting to read the full plan and watching Trump make even more threats to Ukraine to hasten its surrender, I realise that the analogy was a far from adequate one. A more appropriate one would be the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocol, that green-lit the Nazi invasion of Poland and divided Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union.

But I have to stop myself there. It is a very human thing to seek historical precedent for contemporary events. It is somehow reassuring, as if knowing what happened in the past eliminates the uncertainty of the present. But even the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is inadequate for understanding the depth of infamy to which the US President is prepared to sink. It is possible to see and understand the very difficult situation in which Stalin found himself in 1939, unsure of the reliability of the western allies as opponents of Nazi Germany, and aware of the Soviet Union’s lack of preparedness for war (a lack of preparedness caused, to a considerable degree, by Stalin’s purges of his own army, it must be said).

But the USA is in no sense in a difficult position in relation to Russia. Ukraine is struggling, but this is largely because of the weakness of European support and the hesitancy of the Biden administration followed by the outright pro-Putin stance of the Trump regime. A concerted western effort to stop Russian imperialism, with Ukraine as its first line of defence, could have been successful by now. But that would have required a European political elite that wasn’t either pathetic, obsequious or – on parts of the left as well as the far-right – beholden to Putin. It now needs to be acknowledged that if Ukraine is forced to surrender by the US then the European project is over, an abject failure of a rotten, hollow civilisation. It would also have required a USA that wasn’t run by a fascist demagogue, but that’s where we are. If the European project is teetering on the edge, the US has already plunged into the abyss, its wretched political system dragging it down to new depths every day.

No historical analogy is adequate to contemplate the depths to which the USA has plunged with Trump’s plan for Putin’s victory. At the end of WWII, the victors prosecuted the Nazi leadership for their war crimes and genocide. A whole architecture of human rights and international cooperation was built to prevent anything like the horrors of the war occurring again, with the centrepiece the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide were codified. Trump proposes in his “peace plan”, on the other hand, that “all parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war and agree not to make any claims or consider any complaints in the future”. Full immunity, in other words, for war criminals and advocates of genocide, just as Trump ensures full immunity for the Israeli genocidaires, war criminals and killers of children. This is Trump’s foreign policy: everything is a real estate deal, and, in typical mobster fashion, it doesn’t matter how you get to the deal and who gets hurt in the process. The US has essentially become the largest mob gang in the world, with threats, blackmail and standover tactics its entire modus operandi. We thought the old style of US imperialism was bad!

Ukraine is struggling, but the US has the upper hand with Russia. It has an economy many times its size. But Ukraine is still prepared to fight and is still holding its own on the battlefield. With proper support from the US and Europe it would be winning. So why is Trump so determined to force Ukraine to surrender? The 28 point surrender plan makes it clear. Just as the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact allowed the Soviet Union to take its piece of the Polish pie alongside Germany, the Trump-Putin Pact envisages Russia getting what it wants (Ukrainian land) and the US getting its cut – which means the US overseeing the pillaging of Ukraine’s resources, and corporate profiteering in the rebuilding of Ukraine’s shattered infrastructure and cities. Perhaps the most egregious element of the surrender plan is that the US “will receive 50% of the profits” from the investment of $100 billion of frozen Russian assets in “US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine”. The Europeans will also be required to tip in $100 billion to the effort, boosting the US’s profits, while the US is required to contribute nothing. How about giving all of Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine and letting Ukraine lead its own efforts to rebuild?

The surrender plan, in other words, rewards Russia for its aggression, gives Russian war criminals – including its President – immunity from accountability, and then allows the US to profit from Russia’s dirty work. I’m not sure either Molotov or von Ribbentrop were so brazen.

Elements of the surrender plan are vile in the way they seek to impose Putin’s agenda on Ukraine and in the way they try to equate the actions of Russia and Ukraine. The surrender plan talks about a “US guarantee”, but it is unclear what this is. It then goes on to say that “If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantee”. What?! If Ukraine invades Russia?? When would that ever be a threat? Then, “if Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St Petersburg without cause, the security guarantee will be deemed invalid.” If there was peace, why would Ukraine launch a missile at those two cities? (As an aside, the wording of this clause shows the deep idiocy of the Trump regime. It only rules out Ukraine firing missiles at St Petersburg and Moscow. So, presumably Ukraine could fire missiles at other parts of Russia.) Ukraine is not going to fire missiles at Russia at a time of peace. Russia started the war, Russia invaded Ukraine. There aren’t two equally wronged sides here. Russia was never threatened by Ukraine, never mind invaded by it.

Perhaps even more offensively (and hypocritically), the Trump-Putin Pact requires “both countries undertake to implement educational programs in schools and society aimed at promoting understanding and tolerance of different cultures and eliminating racism and prejudice”. What!? This coming from the Trump regime! I’d agree to this if Trump and co agreed to do the same thing first. And how offensive to suggest that Ukraine needs this sort of education program. What would the Trump morons know about Ukrainian culture and education? But there’s more: “Ukraine will adopt EU rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities”. Would they be the same sorts of rules that Vance and Musk have been demanding the EU get rid of so that the European far-right can advance its agenda of intolerance towards religious, linguistic and ethnic minorities? Who said Ukraine is intolerant of other religions? It is well to be intolerant of the Russian Orthodox church, which is merely a front organisation for the Putin regime, a cheer leader for the war and for genocide of the Ukrainian nation. But that doesn’t make it intolerant of religions in general. Coming from the Trump regime, with its concerted Islamophobia, it’s a more than a bit rich.

The surrender plan also requires that “both countries will agree to abolish the discriminatory measures and guarantee the rights of Ukrainian and Russian media and education”. But this ignores the truth that Ukraine doesn’t deny the existence of Russia or of a Russian culture, state, nation. Ukraine doesn’t use its media to try to eradicate Russian identity. Putin’s Russia, on the other hand, does deny that Ukraine is an independent state, a people with its own interests, its own culture, its own language, its own right to exist. Ukraine has the right to create and encourage its own sense of national identity and to incorporate all parts of the nation into the national culture, without allowing foreign nations to undermine this. Ukraine doesn’t have a media operation working in Russia trying to break it up and to deny its right to exist. Given the chance, the Russians would do exactly this in Ukraine.

When Trump’s lips move, Putin’s words come out. Here is another of the surrender plan’s clauses: “All Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and prohibited”. This is just repeating Putin’s propaganda. The bitter irony of it, though, is that it would be very hard for the Russian regime to honour. It would be almost impossible for the US regime to.

But the true character of the surrender plan is revealed by what it envisages for a future Russia-US relationship. It says: “The United States will enter into a long-term economic cooperation agreement for mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centers, rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic, and other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities”. Ukraine must surrender its territory, give up its sovereignty and demand no accountability for the brutal way it has been treated so that Trump and Putin, the leaders of two fascist petro-states, can take techno-extractivism to a new level. Anyone who reads that and doesn’t tremble in fear at what these two vicious regimes want to unleash on the rest of the world is either on board with it or stupid.

I was wrong to compare the Trump-Putin Pact with the Munich Agreement. I wish I could compare it with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The truth is that it is worse even than that. It is hard to imagine a worse “peace agreement”. But that’s because it’s not a peace agreement. It’s a surrender agreement. The war that always follows such agreements – as it did Munich and Molotov-Ribbentrop – will be a war of the ethno-nationalist, techno-feudalist, petro-oligarchs against the people of the world. Which side are you on?