Special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump to allow the U.S. and European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the 3 1/2-year war.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump that the United States and its European allies could offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the war, a U.S. official said Sunday.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who took part in the talks Friday at a military base in Alaska, said it “was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that” and called it “game-changing.”
“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 told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Witkoff offered few details on how such an arrangement would work. But it appeared to be a major shift for Putin and could serve as a workaround to his deep-seated objection to Ukraine’s potential NATO membership, a step that Kyiv has long sought.
It was expected to be a key topic Monday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and major European leaders meet with Trump at the White House to discuss ending the 3 1/2-year conflict.
“BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA,” Trump said in a social media post. “STAY TUNED!”Hammering out a plan for security guarantees
Article 5, at the heart of the 32-member trans-Atlantic military alliance, says an armed attack against one or more member nations shall be considered an attack against them all.
What needed to be hammered out at this week’s talks were the contours of any security guarantees, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also participated in the summit. Ukraine and European allies have pushed the U.S. to provide that backstop in any peace agreement to deter future attacks by Moscow.
“How that’s constructed, what we call it, how it’s built, what guarantees are built into it that are enforceable, that’s what we’ll be talking about over the next few days with our partners,” Rubio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.
