I will be absolutely flabbergasted if he manages that deal. I think Ukraine will have to give up significantly more than Crimea unfortunately:-/

Perhaps. His key leverage here is that he’s chaotic, a lunatic, and will be the CiC, and who the fuck knows what he’ll do if he doesn’t get his way? Enforce a no-fly zone? Flood the country with weaponary? Abandon Ukraine for Russian oil? Leave NATO? Provide explicit nuclear umbrella to the Poles and tell them to have at the erbfeind if they want to?

About the only thing you can rely on is that he’ll do whatever he and his equally loony and chaotic advisors think will make him look good in the short term, based on feels, backed by the might of the American military.

Given all that, is Putin really going to defy him when presented with a deal that Putin has any chance at of spinning as a win at home? Putin's singular leverage is threatening nuclear war, but that only works if you can convince your opponent you're more unhinged than they are, and Putin loses that particular metric to Trump every time.