Trump entered negotiations to end the war in Ukraine by presenting Putin with a bouquet of inexplicable concessions. Washington ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine—then proposed that it might recognize the illegally occupied Crimean peninsula as Russian (in a reversal of long-standing U.S. policy), allow Russia to retain most of the territory it had seized since 2022, and lift sanctions. The U.S. even sided against its European allies when they presented a resolution at the United Nations condemning Moscow—and then it drafted a peace proposal that omitted any criticism of Russia.