Eidman: Putin's goal with Trump's peace plan was to split and destroy Ukrainian society

From the Dialog, Nov 23, 2025:

""Medvedev spilled the beans a long time ago," Eidman explained Putin's goal with the "Trump's" plan

The "Trump's" plan is a Kremlin's attempt to destabilize Ukrainian society, warned Igor Eidman

The actual goal of "Trump's" plan, whether Trump himself realizes it or not, is not to establish some kind of peace, however unfair, but to provide Putin with the conditions for continuing the war and the complete military destruction of Ukraine.  

Russian opposition figure Igor Eidman writes about this in his blog. 

Witkoff and Dmitriev wrote this delusional plan and handed it to Trump as if it had already been agreed upon with Putin. However, Putin has no intention of implementing it or ending the war even on such favorable terms. He has already stated this directly. He only needs the "Trump plan" story as a bomb under the Ukrainian state.  

Putin needs Zelenskyy to officially announce his acceptance of the American president's terms. If that happens, the Kremlin hopes, a split will begin in Ukraine, a mass movement against the current government—among the elites, the army, and society. This, by the same token, will weaken Ukraine's defense capability. 

Putin will then begin pressuring Trump and Ukraine, setting new conditions. For example, the Russian dictator will say he's ready to consider this plan only after Ukraine has already fulfilled some of its provisions: for example, by withdrawing from Donbas and the West ceasing arms supplies to Ukraine. In this situation, Trump will either have to admit that his plan has failed and that he was a fool for trusting the Kremlin's crooks (which, of course, he won't do), or continue to pressure Ukraine to comply with Putin's new ultimatum demands.  

Putin always operates within the framework of typical gangster logic: if you give in to him on something, he'll continue to try to bend the enemy ever lower. 

However, the Kremlin's calculation won't work. Its mistake is that Russians judge Ukraine by themselves. But Ukraine is a democratic state. Zelenskyy, by law, has no authority to accept many of the provisions of the Americans' capitulation plan. As my Ukrainian friends say, if Zelenskyy had followed Trump's lead, the Rada would have simply removed him on charges of national treason, calmly and within the framework of democratic procedures. And he won't do that.  

Here's a quote from Medvedev, where a couple of years ago, while drunk, he blurted out the Kremlin's plans to destabilize the situation in Ukraine with the goal of a "final solution to the Ukrainian question": 

"If this does happen (Ukraine makes concessions to Putin), a new, third bloody Maidan will quickly begin in Kyiv, which will sweep away the current junta and bring an even more radical one to power... 

The ruling clique, led by a rag doll, will flee to the West or be torn to pieces by the crowd... 

And then the time will come to finally crush the vermin. Drive a long steel nail into the coffin of the Bandera quasi-state. Destroy the remnants of its bloody legacy and return the remaining lands to the bosom of the Russian land," Medvedev wrote openly."