Congratulations to Vladimir Putin. He’s on the verge of securing from Donald Trump, shrewd negotiator, what he couldn’t obtain through malignant subterfuge nor military force: De facto recognition of Russia’s right both to occupied Donbas and Crimea.

According to a source who spoke to Bloomberg, Trump and Putin are in discussions for a ceasefire arrangement the terms of which include, among other things, the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Luhansk and Donetsk.

If you’re Kyiv, that’s decidedly unpalatable. For one thing, the Russian military doesn’t control the entire Donbas, as evidenced by the presence of Ukrainian troops. Withdrawing those forces would be to simply gift Putin additional territory.

More importantly, such a concession — handing Putin dominion over the Donbas — would set a very dangerous precedent by validating the Kremlin’s strategy of stoking pro-Russia separatist movements then citing the ensuing local violence as an excuse to intervene.

Recall that Putin recognized the “independence and sovereignty” of Luhansk and Donetsk in February of 2022, just days before the invasion. Seven months later, he convened sham referendums in a transparently ridiculous effort to create a pretext for annexations.

Now, Trump’s on the verge of retroactively declaring those annexations valid, although I’m sure The White House won’t describe it that way if in fact a proposed ceasefire does include the ceding of Luhansk and Donetsk. According to Bloomberg’s source, the arrangement would also ask Kyiv to formally cede Crimea.

This is obviously a bad deal for Ukraine, but it’s possible Trump will present it to Volodymyr Zelensky as an ultimatum. Yes, Trump’s expressed irritable consternation at Putin in recent weeks for the Kremlin’s generalized refusal to engage seriously in the peace process. But at the end of the day, all Trump wants is credit for “ending” the war.

Of course, any ceasefire won’t be the end. Ukraine’s partially occupied. Even if Kyiv cedes the Donbas and Crimea at figurative and literal gunpoint, they’re not going to consider the matter closed. It’s not as if everyone’s just going to shrug their shoulders and walk away: “Gosh, that sucked! Glad it’s over!”

No, Ukraine’s going to be the site of an ongoing internal conflict for decades, just like it’s been the site of a low-level civil war for the decade just passed. And Putin’s never going to give up on the idea that he should control the entire country. Depending on how old you are, it’s very unlikely you’ll see the end of this conflict in your lifetime.

To call this a slippery slope with Putin would be an understatement. Again, just about the last thing you want to do if you’re a US president is signal to the Kremlin that their regional modus operandi — instigating separatists to action, then claiming those separatists need Russian protection — is a strategy that’ll pay big dividends.

That’s the crux of the issue here, and Crimea obviously falls under the same umbrella. Trump doesn’t get it because he isn’t interested in the finer points of this issue, or any other issue for that matter. I sympathize with his inclination to brush aside the subtleties if it means putting an immediate “stop to the killing,” as he put it this week. But unfortunately, foreign policy’s not that simple.