By Fen Hampson

November 27, 2025

Any peace plan for Ukraine will fail unless it includes robust and ironclad security guarantees for Ukraine—nothing less will suffice. Europe must speak with absolute clarity on this issue, and so must Canada.

There is more than a residual echo in Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan to Neville Chamberlain’s Munich Agreement, which ceded a good chunk of Czechoslovakia—as the Czech and Slovak Republics were then called—to Germany’s Adolf Hitler and emboldened him to try to seize the rest of Europe.

Only this time, as we are now learning, the peace agreement was drafted by Russia, and then delivered to Trump’s personal envoy, Steve Witkoff. Before Secretary of State Marco Rubio and what remains of an experienced diplomatic cadre at the State Department, could review the terms, the Russians leaked the details in a clumsy attempt to force Trump’s hand.

The key elements of Trump’s plan are significant territorial concessions by Ukraine that include recognizing Russia’s control over Crimea and those parts of Donetsk and Luhansk which Russia currently occupies.

In addition, the remaining territories of Ukraine-held Donetsk would be demilitarized and fall outside of Ukraine’s control. Ukraine would also have to renounce its aspirations for NATO membership and accept limits to the size of its armed forces.

At the same time, NATO would pledge that it would not expand further beyond its current membership, effectively closing the door to membership by Ukraine. Sanctions on Russia would also be lifted, and the hundreds of billions in frozen Russian assets would be released to be used for both Ukraine’s and Russia’s reconstruction. A Trump-chaired peace council would oversee the implementation of the plan.

European and Ukrainian leaders, long accustomed to Trump’s mercurial and vindictive ways, offered polite public endorsements of the plan, then immediately began working on their own refinements, led by Britain, France and Germany.

The European plan reportedly contains language that reaffirms Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign and independent nation, along with the “expectation” that Russia will not invade its neighbours. Ukraine will also receive robust security guarantees similar to those in Article 5 of the Atlantic Charter, including from the United States.

It should also be made clear in any agreement that a major Russian attack on Ukraine will be viewed as a threat to transatlantic security and will be treated the same way as an attack on any NATO member.

Ukraine’s army is to be capped at 800,000 troops, and, although no NATO troops would be stationed in Ukraine, a permanent force of NATO fighter jets would be stationed in Poland. The U.S. is to be compensated for its security guarantees to Ukraine—presumably, this refers to the armaments the U.S. would provide.

The European plan also contains a provocative element: Russia’s return to the G8. Given that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin over his alleged war crimes in Ukraine—charges stemming from Russia’s February 2022 invasion—things could get interesting. Putin could attend G8 summits with only one guarantee of safety. The United States, which refuses to recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, would be the sole venue where he could meet with world leaders without facing arrest.

Although the European plan is clearly a step in the right direction, the terms we know of still fall short of providing the security guarantees Ukraine urgently requires.

Ukraine has clearly shown that it can defend itself, provided it maintains a robust defence force of active-duty and reserve-ready personnel, which defence experts estimate at 555,000 and 450,000, respectively. It would also need a healthy defence budget not only to support those forces, but to scale up its drone and ammunition production capabilities to defend itself. International partners will also be needed to support air patrols against Russian forces, strengthen Ukraine’s air defence capabilities, and maintain an ongoing naval presence in the Black Sea.

It should also be made clear in any agreement that a major Russian attack on Ukraine will be viewed as a threat to transatlantic security and will be treated the same way as an attack on any NATO member.

Frozen Russian assets should be used to arm Ukraine and rebuild its economy, not returned to Moscow; Russia must be left in no doubt that the opportunity to reclaim them has long since passed. In addition, it would help to have an international peacekeeping force to monitor the agreement and serve as a tripwire in the event of Russian incursions into Ukrainian territory.

NATO membership is ultimately the best guarantee of Ukraine’s security—a fact that makes its exclusion from any peace agreement particularly dangerous. Europeans rejected this path when President George W. Bush first proposed it in 2008, but the stakes have fundamentally changed.

Without a credible path to NATO membership for Ukraine, Putin will be able to manipulate and undermine the terms of any peace agreement to his own advantage. The alliance must signal unequivocally that this option remains open, demonstrating to Putin that time is not on his side.

Policy Contributing Writer Fen Osler Hampson is a chancellor’s professor at Carleton University and co-chair of the Expert Group on Canada-U.S. Relations.