The Russia-Ukraine peace deal is not a loss. Nor is it a victory | Stephen Wertheim

The conflict is neither a clear-cut defeat nor a feel-good victory, but an in-between outcome that contains profound elements of each

No one should be satisfied with the unjust peace that Ukraine may be forced to accept. The aggressor would be rewarded with territory and other concessions from the victim it has brutalized. Yet the horrified reaction in Washington to recent peace proposals is troubling in its own right.

The Trump administration's recent 28-point plan, roundly denounced in Congress and the commentariat as a capitulation" to Moscow, actually offered Kyiv a remarkable strategic outcome. Under its terms, Ukraine would face no meaningful limit on its peacetime military, despite Russian attempts to impose draconian restrictions since 2022. (The only requirement, a cap of 600,000 personnel, probably exceeds the number of active-duty forces Ukraine would maintain anyway.) Moreover, Ukraine would receive a substantial security guarantee from the United States and Europe - the strongest in history, even if short of a Nato-style commitment.

Stephen Wertheim is Deputy Director of Research and Policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.