Can he impose a peace on Ukraine? Probably not. As he often does in “negotiations”, he has less actual leverage than he would have you believe. In reality - Trump has made the U.S. completely irrelevant to the process unless they opted to attack Ukraine directly.

The first thing he did was cut off direct U.S. aid. The second was to start tarriffing the world and threatening to invade allies - probably to try and get them to care more about themselves and less about Ukraine. That’s about all the cards he has to play. He’s an obese octogenarian with the vitals of a diabetic house cat. The thrashing bluster he’s doing now relfects how perilous Russia’s positioin is. Russia stands to gain next to nothing for pissing away 70 years of Soviet hardware inheritance, millions of casualties and it’s citizens fleeing the war, squandered 30 year war chest of oil money, become junior patner in the axis of authoritarian shitholes to China. And for what? For the hubis and ego of an overpromoted gangster ghoul.

But the problem with being a raging narcissist is that you overstate your own capabilities and assume that everyone wants what you want. Ukraine can keep bleeding the Russians for a long, long, long time at this point. All Russia is capable of is terror bombing. Pushing infiltration teams of 2-5 men into pounded rubble where they wait to be killed by drones, snipers, mines or Ukrainian assault forces isn’t a great long term occupation strategy. Fine - you can send low quality goblins into contested areas. Ukraine will kill them all, eventually.

The point of conquest is supposed to be that you can reap the benefits of that territory. That only works if the enemy stops harassing you. Just like the American experience in Vietnam in meaningless hills and valleys - even if you win a battle and manage to put troops into a location, then what? You either hold it and keep bleeding, or retreat and the enemy comes back. There is no path to pacifying Ukraine.

Ukraine is suffering from Russia’s terror bombing - but trading crtiical, valuable territory knowing that it means the Russians will invade again in 3-5 years is no kind of peace deal worth making. The only way to truly neuter Russia’s malignant tendencies is probably to degrade their overall ability to make war.

In short - Ukraine might be best served to stall, delay, stick to it’s principles of zero territorial concessions, and wait for Russia’s position to degrade further. You’re not getting any kind of lasting peace while putin is alive - you might as well keep fighting, even if it’s painful in the near term. It’s MORE painful for Russia’s long term. A bad peace is maybe the worst outcome of all.