Key Points and Summary – Following recent diplomatic summits, the concept of post-war “security guarantees” for Ukraine has emerged as a key talking point, but the details remain “dangerously hazy.”
-While the U.S. has floated the idea of “Article 5-like” protections, Russia has a history of inserting “poison-pill” clauses that would give it a veto over any response.
-Scarred by the broken promises of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine is wary of any agreement that isn’t ironclad.
-Several options are on the table, but there is no consensus on who would enforce the guarantees or how.
Ukraine Wants ‘Security Guarantees’: But Problems Look Clear
One idea that came out of the meetings President Donald Trump had with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Voldomyr Zelenskyy earlier this month was that “security guarantees” would be offered to Ukraine, at the conclusion of the war, implicitly to provide a “guarantee” that Russia would not invade Ukraine again.
However, there’s a lot of uncertainty over exactly what such guarantees might look like.
After Trump met with Putin, the U.S. president’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, announced that the Russian leader had agreed to “NATO-style security guarantees.”
“We were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” Witkoff said on CNN after the summit.
Article 5 is the North Atlantic Treaty provision that states any attack on a NATO nation is an attack on all. While Russia has demanded that Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO — and Trump declared earlier this month that Ukraine can forget about doing so — such a guarantee would grant Ukraine a key membership benefit of NATO without actually joining.
But What Does That Mean?
Per an analysis last week by The Economist, the details of such guarantees are “dangerously hazy.”
“One of the most important unresolved questions is about security guarantees—how Ukraine would ensure that Russia did not break a peace deal and invade again,” the unbylined story said. “A nightmare scenario for Ukraine is that Russia will use the lifting of sanctions and peace to rebuild and retrain its military, and re-emerge as a more formidable force to attack Ukraine again and finish the job.”
The big question is about the ambiguity about what, exactly, Putin promised.
“The details are important. In 2022, during talks with Ukraine, Russia did indeed agree that Ukraine’s partners could provide guarantees as part of a peace deal. But the Kremlin later inserted a poison-pill clause that would have allowed it to veto any activation of those guarantees. On August 20th Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said that any new deal would need to be based on those proposals, with China included among the guarantors.”
There is also the question of who exactly would provide those guarantees, as Trump has promised, in an interview on Fox News last week, that there will be no U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine.
Several Options For Security
Bloomberg News, this week, listed several potential scenarios for how the security guarantees might play out. Bloomberg noted that the Ukrainian side is “scarred” by the Budapest Memorandum in 1994. In that agreement, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons — then the world’s third-largest arsenal — in exchange for Russia agreeing to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and the U.S. and U.K. agreeing to “security assurances.” Russia breached that agreement in 2014, when it invaded Crimea, and again when it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Per Bloomberg, Ukraine could join NATO, although that’s a red line for Russia. It could receive “Article 5-like guarantees,” without actually joining NATO.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, earlier this year, proposed “offering Ukraine the security of NATO without actual membership.” Under that plan, “nations with pre-existing bilateral agreements with Ukraine would confer quickly on a response in the event of another Russian attack,” before deciding 24 hours later “whether to come to Ukraine’s aid.”
Another option is for Ukraine to join the European Union but not NATO.
Also a possibility?
“Another option would be for Ukraine to rely on bilateral mutual defense agreements. The most meaningful deterrent would be a deal with the US, given its military and financial clout, although this is unlikely to materialize while Trump is in office,” Bloomberg said.
Still to be determined are which countries will provide the security, whether that will include ground troops, and who will bear the cost.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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