There are no guarantees in life. The unexpected can hit at any time, overturning the best-laid plans and brightest hopes. But where threats are known, it is possible at least to prepare against major risks.
Ukraine believes that any peace agreement involving Russia will only be temporary and that Vladimir Putin is intent on destroying Ukraine as an independent state and re-incorporating it into a revived Russian Empire.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky is therefore insisting on effective security guarantees, and ones that are more or less permanent. He has demanded a duration of at least 50 years, while US President Trump seems keen on a more limited horizon of 15 years for any US commitments.
After the Anchorage summit between Trump and Putin in August, the US said that the way was now clear for a security guarantee as part of a ceasefire settlement. However, Moscow quickly clarified that all it was willing to accept was a provision drawn from a draft agreement negotiated but not adopted by Russia and Ukraine in April 2022.
That agreement provided for a broad collection of guarantor states, including China and Russia, with any action needing to be agreed by all of them. This would have included Russia itself, rendering the undertaking pretty much meaningless.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin before their meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025 (Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP)However, even Kyiv’s closest allies have been hesitant when it comes to offering it firm security guarantees.
After the failure of the draft agreement last year, Zelensky demanded from his Western allies a commitment to common defence, in line with Nato’s Article 5, which states that an attack against one is an attack against all. This was to be included in a legally binding treaty formally ratified by the parliaments of participating nations.
This stance was based on Ukraine’s experience with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, where, in exchange for surrendering nuclear weapons left on its territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US, UK and Russia confirmed their commitment to its existing borders.
While Ukraine had assumed that the memorandum was legally binding, the US and UK later clarified that in their view it was merely a political commitment.
A joint high-level commission – appointed in 2022 to offer a vision for a more credible guarantee that Nato states could accept – adopted the steel porcupine approach: Ukraine’s allies would do everything to train and equip Kyiv’s armed forces at a high level, but Ukraine would need to do the fighting should war break out again.
This move reflected the caution of many Nato member states to the on-going war in Ukraine. Decisions on supplying it with advanced tanks or jet fighters were often long delayed for fears of triggering a direct military confrontation with Russia that could lead to a third world war.
A Ukrainian soldier from the 24th Brigade in front of a building damaged by Russian bombing in Kostiantynivka on 28 December (Photo: Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty)That hesitation still persists. However, some European states have grown more hawkish, led by the UK and France, and have pressed for far stronger security guarantees.
These guarantees would be “Article 5-like” and would be backed by the deployment of an assurance force composed of troops drawn from willing Nato members, although not operating under Nato command. The US would remain semi-detached. It might “backstop” this commitment through intelligence, airlift and logistical support, and could perhaps offer air assets deployed over the horizon, for instance in Poland.
Of course, part of Russia’s war against Ukraine was the desire to push Nato away from its borders. Accordingly, Putin is strongly resistant to the physical presence of forces from Nato states in Ukraine. Thus far this has been a key red line.
One option might be for an assurance force that can only be deployed in Western Ukraine. It might not be a heavy, war-fighting force, but a more modest presence devoted to intelligence, communications and logistics tasks, along with training and possibly missile and air defences. It could also be protected by over-the-horizon air elements with the ability, if necessary, to “clear the skies over Ukraine”, as Zelensky has demanded.
In addition to enhancing the capacity of Ukrainian forces, its presence would likely complicate any calculations within the Kremlin about a renewed attack on Ukraine.
If the Kremlin could accept such a scenario – perhaps in exchange for territorial concessions in the Donbas region – many issues would still remain.
Any ceasefire would also probably need to be supported by a separate blue-helmet-type buffer force along the line of contact, composed of forces somewhat acceptable to Moscow.
Your next read
square US POLITICS AnalysisWhy President Vance would be more dangerous than Trump
square WORLD InterviewI was CIA’s top agent in Moscow – Putin has trained to manipulate men like Trump
square DONALD TRUMPTrump says high doses of aspirin to blame for bruises
square RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR DispatchUkraine’s resources are at breaking point and a car park in Lviv shows us why
Critically, European capitals will have to ask themselves if they are really willing to commit to a potential hot war with Moscow through a genuine hard security guarantee.
The promised Article 5-like trigger could, in effect, make this substantially the same as Nato membership, except without the involvement of Nato as a powerful, integrated military institution, and without the full backing of some of its key members, in particular the US.
Will their populations and parliaments be willing to ratify such a commitment in a legally binding way? If not, there is a risk that Europe is raising expectations on the part of Ukraine that cannot be met. This would place Ukraine in a difficult position of having to reject the whole deal, or of accepting a settlement that does not seem to secure its long-term future.
Marc Weller is the director of the International Law programme at Chatham House and a professor at the University of Cambridge
Hence then, the article about ukraine is wary of europe s promises of security guarantees with good reason was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Ukraine is wary of Europe’s promises of security guarantees – with good reason )
Also on site :
- Skanska signs additional contract with existing client to build a data center in USA for USD 228M, about SEK 2.2 billion
- ‘No way out’: Telangana student dies in Germany after jumping from burning apartment on New Year’s Eve
- Switzerland fire latest: King Charles ‘heartbroken’ after 40 killed in ‘horrific’ Crans Montana bar disaster