This proposal is intended to design a three-month (approximately) entry plan for NATO troops into Ukraine. It proceeds in a series of stages, with the following rules of engagement:
Purposes
Prevent both sides from continuing offensive operations against the other.
Secure the welfare of the injured
Providing logistical arteries for humanitarian relief
Uphold rule of law
Uphold the integrity of Ukrainian public institutions
Undertake no step that would compromise the legal integrity of Ukraine as a sovereign state.
Rules of engagement
Primary Phase
In a Primary Phase, all activities to be confined to the use of non-lethal force.
However the right of self-defence, including the use of lethal force to achieve self-defence, is preserved.
Measures may be taken for the arrest and detention of persons considered a threat to the peace.
Orders, including military orders overriding domestic command structure orders, to undertake measure designed to eliminate the use of lethal force.
Orders may be given to both civilian and military authorities to achieve the goals of disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration.
No orders will be given to the de facto authorities in the occupied regions of Ukraine in the Primary Phase.
In the event that the Commander-in-Chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization determines that NATO troops have been fired upon, then the Rules of Engagement will proceed to a Secondary Phase.
Secondary Phase
In the Secondary Phase, NATO troops may use all necessary means to achieve the purposes of their occupation.
In the Secondary Phase, instructions and orders may be given and enforced throughout the territory of de jure Ukraine.
In the Secondary Phase, instructions and orders given may be enforced using all necessary means.
Stages
It is anticipated that there be a two-week gap between the implementation of each stage but this may be adjusted, as may the precise territorial boundaries of entry of NATO troops into Ukrainian territories, by decision of the Commander-in-Chief of the NATO Armed Forces.
First stage
The first stage will involve simultaneous entry of NATO troops into Lviv Oblast and all Oblasts within 400 kilometres of the city of Lviv, from Poland; and the entry of NATO troops into Odessa Oblast and all Oblasts within 250 kilometres of the city of Odessa, from the Bessarabia region coming via Romania.
The territorial integrity of Moldova will be respected unless the authorities of Moldova invite NATO troops to enter Moldova pursuant to a separate Status of Forces Agreement; even in such event NATO troops will not enter the territory of Transnistria unless this is necessary in self-defence.
Second stage
The second stage will involve movement of NATO troops eastwards to include all territories in Ukraine west of a line between Mykolaïv and Cherkasy and north from Cherkasy to the border with Russia, including the entirety of the cities of Kyiv, Mykolaïv and Cherkasy but not to the east of Mykolaïv or Cherkasy.
Third stage
The third stage will involvement movement of NATO troops eastwards to include all territories in Ukraine west of a line between Nikopol and Poltava and north of Poltava to the border with Russia, including the city of Kherson as currently occupied by forces aligned with Kyiv and also including the entirety of the cities in Nikopol and Poltava but not to the east of Nikopol or Poltava. An internationally supervised government shall be imposed for Kherson under the authority of an international Supervisor for Kherson whose decisions shall have overriding force of law notwithstanding any provision of Ukrainian law or the Ukrainian constitution to the contrary.
At this stage any and all provocative attacks by military groups associated with the Russian Federation upon Kherson or Nikopol shall be considered by the Commander-in-Chief of the NATO Armed Forces as a trigger to move from the Primary Phase to the Secondary Phase of the Rules of Engagement.
Fourth stage
The fourth stage shall involve simultaneous entry of NATO troops into the cities of Kharkiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia and appropriate surrounding areas currently under the authority of the government in Kyiv.
At this stage any and all provocative attacks by military groups associated with the Russian Federation upon Kharkiv, Dnipro or Zaporizhzhia shall be considered by the Commander-in-Chief of the NATO Armed Forces as a trigger to move from the Primary Phase to the Secondary Phase of the Rules of Engagement.
Fifth stage
The fifth stage shall involve simultaneous entry of NATO troops into the cities of Izyum, Kupiansk, Siversk, Lyman, Mykolaïvka, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, Kostyantynivka, Toretsk, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, and all territories to the west of a line between Toretsk and Kurakhove.
At this stage any and all provocative attacks by military groups associated with the Russian Federation upon any of the aforementioned settlements shall be considered by the Commander-in-Chief of the NATO Armed Forces as a trigger to move from the Primary Phase to the Secondary Phase.
Armistice Line
The territories so entered by NATO troops pursuant to the aforementioned Stages shall be considered the de facto armistice line without any concessions or admissions being given as to the de jure nature of the occupation by the Russian Armed Forces or their proxies of territories remaining under occupation at that time.
The parties shall then negotiate a de-militarised zone (DMZ) along the Armistice Line which shall begin at 5 kilometres separating Ukraine- and Russia-aligned armed forces and shall be extended in stages to 40 kilometres.
NATO troops shall be permitted to enter and remain in the DMZ to enforce the peace including the use of all necessary means against forces from either side that violate the principles of armistice.
NATO representatives and/or their agents shall negotiate mutual disarmament demobilisation and reintegration measures along the Armistice Line to be implemented over a period of twelve months from the Armistice Line being declared by the Commander-in-Chief of the NATO Armed Force.
An international civilian NATO mission (the "Office for Implementation of the Armistice") shall be established to give effect to civilian aspects of the mission. Members of the Office of Implementation of the Armistice shall be unarmed but an attack upon them shall be considered as an event justifying transition from the Primary Phase to the Secondary Phase. Members of the Office for Implementation of the Armistice shall be authorised to issue legally binding instructions to both sides that override domestic legal instruments, in accordance with the internal regulations of the Office for Implementation of the Armistice, and in this context the Office for Implementation of the Armistice shall be run by a High Representative for Ukraine, who shall be appointed by the Commander-in-Chief of the NATO Armed Forces in consultation with the Secretary-General of NATO.