Russia Agrees To Security Guarantees For Ukraine

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – In a potential breakthrough that could help end Europe’s bloodiest conflict in decades, Russia has reportedly agreed to extensive security protections for Ukraine as part of a possible peace deal.

U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during Friday’s Alaska summit with U.S. President Donald J. Trump to allow the United States and European allies to provide Ukraine with a security guarantee resembling Article Five of the NATO military alliance.

Article Five states that “an attack on one member is an attack on all” NATO member states. The proposed arrangement would effectively sidestep Ukraine’s formal NATO membership bid, which Moscow had long opposed.

Witkoff told U.S.-broadcaster CNN’s State of the Union program: “We got to an agreement that the United States and other European nations could effectively offer Article Five-like language to cover a security guarantee. So Putin has said that a red flag is NATO admission [of Ukraine].”

He emphasized that any deal must also be acceptable to Kyiv. “Assuming that the Ukrainians could agree to that, and could live with that, everything is going to be about what the Ukrainians can live with,” he added.

PUTIN’S UNPRECEDENTED CONCESSION

According to Witkoff, Russia’s acceptance marks a historic shift. “But assuming they could, we were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article Five-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” he explained.

“We sort of were able to bypass that [NATO membership] and get an agreement that the United States could offer Article Five protection, which was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that,” Witkoff stressed.

The announcement came just hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due at the White House on Monday. He is expected to be accompanied by several European leaders who have pledged to rally behind Ukraine following his exclusion from last week’s Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.

The talks will focus on translating the tentative security framework into a comprehensive peace agreement. European leaders have also made clear they want guarantees that any deal includes territorial sovereignty, prisoner exchanges, and the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war.

Despite the progress, Moscow has so far continued to reject Ukraine’s NATO membership outright and remains unwilling to return territories annexed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Analysts caution that the breakthrough could collapse unless Kyiv accepts the compromise and Moscow follows through on its pledge. Still, the U.S. envoy’s remarks mark the most significant acknowledgment to date that Russia may accept a Western-led framework to secure Ukraine’s future outside of NATO, commentators say.

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