Vladimir Putin will undoubtedly be rubbing his hands with glee this weekend.
Less than a month into his second term in office, Donald Trump declared that negotiations to end the three-year war in Ukraine had officially started – and then expressed support for all of Putin’s main demands.
The announcement was a moment the rest of Ukraine’s western allies had been dreading, even though Trump’s sympathies with Putin have been well-documented.
After all, the US president once called the invasion “savvy” and “genius”, and claimed earlier this week that Ukraine could “one day” be part of Russia.
But Wednesday’s sudden declaration marked the moment the US officially stepped away from Europe, and decided Kyiv would no longer be allowed to decide its future for itself.
The US president’s move also undermines the west’s previously-united efforts to isolate Putin on the world stage after he invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
So – what happens now?
What do we know about the US’s proposals so far?
After his 90-minute phone call with Putin, Trump confirmed that the war is “unlikely” to end with a restoration of Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders (a demand which was once a red line for Kyiv).
That means Ukraine could lose all of its land which is currently occupied by Russia (roughly 20% of its total territory).
The US defence secretary Pete Hegseth also claimed it was not “realistic” for Ukraine to try and join the Nato alliance.
He said there would be no American troops deployed to Ukraine, although European and non-European soldiers could be added to future security guarantees for the beleaguered country.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already expressed frustrations that Trump chose to call Putin before speaking to him.
He told the press on Thursday it was “unpleasant,” but not necessarily a sign of Trump’s priorities.
However, Zelenskyy echoed the words from his European allies and said he would not accept terms to end the war without Ukraine’s input.
Is this really peace?
According to Trump, yes – both he and Putin “want peace”.
He also told reporters that he told Ukraine it was “not a good war to go into and I think they have to make peace, that’s what I think.”
But Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow from think tank Chatham House, doesn’t think these early negotiations are promising at all.
He told HuffPost UK that the deal outlined by the US so far is akin to only an “illusory peace”.
Giles said: “Without that protection, without those security guarantees and that means of deterring Russia from pushing further – whether immediately or after he has re-gathered his forces, there is no peace.
“It is a claim of an illusory peace in the form of a temporary respite from conflict, which does nothing to address Russia’s underlying aims and the way in which they are completely incompatible not only with European security but also the existence of Ukraine.”
He added that Hegseth’s list of what will happen is “indistinguishable from Putin’s demands”.
Why is Trump pushing for peace now?
Even before his January inauguration, the US president was promising to end the war within his first 24 hours back in office.
While he missed this self-imposed deadline, Trump has insisted that he will end the Ukraine-Russia war, breaking from the united front the western allies have presented to Putin over the last three years.
According to the UK’s former defence secretary Ben Wallace, this all comes down to Trump’s most famous slogan – Make America Great Again.
Wallace told Times Radio: “MAGA is all about America first.”
The former Tory MP said this was not a display of leadership from Trump, but about prioritising the US.
Washington DC has sent approximately $69.2 billion in military aid since Russia initially invaded Ukraine in 2014, and Trump has made it clear he wants to cut down on the US’s international spending so money can go on domestic issues instead.
Ukraine is also home to 50 rare minerals which Trump, ever the businessman, has his eye on.
He said this week he wants the equivalent of ”$500 billion worth of rare earths” from the country if Ukraine wants continued military support from the US.
But Lev Parnas, a businessman who once served as a fixed in Ukraine for Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told POLITICO it was more personal.
Speaking last year, he said: “Trump hates Ukraine. He and people around him believe that Ukraine was the cause of all Trump’s problems.”
Meanwhile, Dr Mike Galsworthy – chair of the European Movement UK, said the US under the Trump administration is “absolutely an unreliable partner on anything.”
He said: “This government cannot and should not make any serious plans which rely on the US in any way.”
Giles said: “It’s reasonable to think that Trump wants a PR victory at the cost of a catastrophic defeat for close US partners.”
But the specialist also suggested there might be no one clear reason.
He said: “The deeper motivations for what drives Trump to favour policy outcomes that Russia would like over those which are actually in the interest of the US is the subject of many long books, both psychological and counterintelligence speculation.”
Does Ukraine have to accept any peace deal Trump and Putin come up with?
As Chatham House’s Giles said, there is no logical reason why Kyiv would even agree to these terms in the first place.
He said: “For Ukraine, it makes no sense to agree to a catastrophic peace decision which would actually be worse than fighting on.”
But, Trump can pressure Kyiv to act in one way or another just by withholding aid because the US is Ukraine’s largest military donor and strongest ally.
Nick Harvey, former armed forces minister and CEO of European Movement UK, went so far as to compare it to extortion.
He said: “It smacks of blackmail. Ukraine would do better to keep hold of its mineral rights, and make a brutal assessment of who its friends are.”
Similarly, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “The UK and our European allies must ensure that President Zelenskyy is not bullied by Trump into giving away sovereign Ukrainian territory to Putin.”
But. how many other options does Ukraine have?
Zelenskyy himself has said Europe alone cannot protect Ukraine, telling the Guardian this week: “Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees.”
Can the rest of Europe help at all?
Despite being overshadowed by Trump, Europe does not appear to have given up – at least, according to its public rhetoric.
UK PM Keir Starmer told ITV News: “Putin is the aggressor. Putin’s in breach of the UN Charter, in my view. And this conflict could be ended tomorrow if Putin withdrew his troops. And so for me, that would be the simplest and the quickest way to end this conflict.”
“Ukrainians want peace,” Starmer said. “Those that have had to flee the country want to go back to their country. But this has to be led by Ukraine. There’s no negotiations about Ukraine which doesn’t involve Ukraine, and Ukraine needs to be in the strongest possible position.”
Wallace also said that Britain – and its allies – have to “make sure that 2014, 2022 doesn’t become 2028”, alluding to Putin’s first annexation of Crimea more than a decade ago and his full-blown invasion eight years later.
Simlarly, Labour backbencher David Taylor told HuffPost UK: “We must make no mistake, this war is not just critical to the security of Ukraine, it is critical to our security here in the UK. The frontline in Ukraine is the frontline for us in the UK.”
But, can Ukraine’s other allies realistically fill the void left by the US?
Giles suggested that was not possible, and accused European leaders of “delinquency” for not boosting their own defence over the years when they had the chance.
Taking aim at the British government in particular, he said: “The ongoing disinterest of the UK in even maintaining its current defence capacity, let alone boosting it to something that was comparable to what it promised Nato, is a dereliction of duty that will have severe consequences before long.”
Will Putin simply rearm and return?
Wallace told Times Radio: “I don’t trust Putin an inch. And without any form of mechanism or indeed guarantees, he’ll be back. He will rearm and he will be back.”
Giles went to so far as to compare Trump’s negotiations to Nazi appeasement of 1938, when then-UK prime minister Neville Chamberlain secured promises from Adolf Hitler that he would not attempt any further land grabs – as long as Germany could annex the Sudetenland.
The specialist said: “There are some many parallels between the current situation and 1938 it’s almost ludicrous.
“Nobody should be surprised if at some point we do see Donald Trump waving a piece of paper and telling the world that Mr Putin has told him he has no territorial ambition.”
Giles also pointed out that the main difference between now and the pre-World War 2 era is the west seems much more reluctant to build up its defences now than it did 90 years ago.
He said: “No one is thinking about rearming right now, because they have had the time to rebuild their forces and they have squandered it.”
How long could any Trump-Putin peace deal hold?
Hitler waited a year after his deal with Chamberlain before invading Poland.
If Putin were to follow in his footsteps, it could not be long before he returns to seize more land – a fear which has hung over eastern Europe throughout the war.
As Giles said: “We’ve been hearing timeframes getting steadily smaller and smaller.
“The consensus in the early part of last year is that it would take three to five years for Russia to be ready to make a move against a Nato nation.”
But the Danish Defence Intelligence Service warned this week that Russia could be ready to wage a local war with a bordering country within six months. Within two years it could launch a regional war in the Baltic Sea region, and in five years it could launch a large-scale attack on Europe – if the US stays out of it.
Giles noted that Russia’s means to attack at long-range distances have been left “untouched” throughout the war with Ukraine. In fact, they’ve been reconstituting them while under pressure from Kyiv.
He said: “Putin will have been encouraged by Trump coming to his rescue.
“Not only potentially giving him the respite his forces want from the ongoing grinding attrition but also Putin’s international rehabilitation.”
Trump has said he and Putin were planning to visit one another’s capitals, apparently overlooking the international arrest warrant out for Putin over his actions in Ukraine.
“All of this is precisely what Putin has been looking for,” Giles said, adding: “It’s not whether Russia will push further, but when and where.”