The US has offered Ukraine NATO-style security guarantees without the possibility of officially joining the alliance in the event of a peace deal, according to media reports.
This would mean that the US and Ukraine’s European allies would be obliged to respond to any future attack on Ukraine, similar to NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause.
Under Article 5, NATO considers any attack launched on one of its 32 members to be an attack against all.
Reuters reported on Saturday, Aug. 16 that European leaders were looking for clarity on what role the US might play if the clause were to be included in a future peace deal.
The proposal for NATO-style security guarantees was reportedly raised in a call between US President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky alongside European leaders on Saturday morning, hours after the conclusion of Trump’s summit with Russian leader Putin in Alaska.
An anonymous diplomatic source told AFP that Putin has reportedly agreed to such an arrangement.
“As one of the security guarantees for Ukraine, the American side proposed a non-NATO Article 5 type guarantee, supposedly agreed with Putin,” the person said.
“No one knows how this could work and why Putin would agree to it if he is categorically against NATO and obviously really effective guarantees of Ukraine’s sovereignty,” the source added.
Moscow has repeatedly argued that Ukraine’s desire to join NATO is what sparked its decision to invade in 2022. Trump has already ruled out the possibility of Kyiv joining the bloc.
On Saturday, a joint statement by European leaders after the debrief with Trump stated that Russia “cannot have a veto against Ukraine’s pathway to EU and NATO.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in a post on X that “strong security guarantees that protect Ukrainian and European vital security interests are essential” in any peace deal aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
In March, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni similarly proposed granting Ukraine the same security guarantees as NATO member states without official accession.
“I think this would be a stable, lasting, and effective security guarantee, much better than some of the proposals I have seen,” she said at the time.
Zelensky will be in Washington on Monday for talks with Trump. A second source told AFP that Zelensky will discuss a possible Trump–Putin–Zelensky summit, the role of Europe in peace talks, territories and security guarantees.