One of the key topics in future negotiations to end the Russian-Ukrainian war is security guarantees for Kiev. Donald Trump first held a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and yesterday he received Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
Ukrainian analyst Igor Reiterovich writes for the UNIAN agency that the most acceptable and only possible security guarantee for Ukraine is joining NATO. Another effective guarantee, besides NATO, are nuclear weapons.
Ukraine used to have them, but after the collapse of the USSR it gave them up in exchange for security guarantees from several great powers, including Russia. However, Moscow grossly violated the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and, instead of defending Ukraine, invaded with the aim of destroying it.
Reiterovich points out that in the current situation it will be impossible for Kiev to obtain nuclear weapons to protect itself from a new Russian attack.
“Most likely, we can count on money, weapons, sharing intelligence... If joining NATO is not possible, then in essence there remain bilateral agreements between Ukraine and other countries on military-technical support, the possible deployment of troops on the territory of our state, etc.“, Reiterovich writes.
Ukraine will sign agreements with individual countries and, depending on the country, certain decisions will be made regarding these guarantees. Which countries are we talking about? Germany, Great Britain, France, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. They are ready. And in the long term, we can have a strong regional military-political bloc (after the end of the war, Ukraine will be of great interest to the Europeans, because we have experience, we have an army, and to some extent we will remain a shield for Europe).
Donald Trump never mentioned the possibility of deploying American troops, even instructors, on Ukrainian territory. The conversation was more about, for example, some support in the form of intelligence information, arms sales. If we are talking about guarantees at the level of Article 5 of NATO, then this is precisely the US idea proposed by Donald Trump. He said that if a country, say Germany, declares that it is ready to sign an agreement with Ukraine, according to which two divisions will be on its territory, then this country has the right to make such a decision. And in such a case, this conditional Germany will not act as a NATO country, but will act independently. In fact, there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of similar precedents in the world. The United States has conducted its military operations in exactly this way - they have not been operations of the United States as a member of NATO.
Reiterovich concludes: We would like to see weapons provided, military cooperation, joint exercises, instructors, advisors... Ideally, of course, the deployment of some American troops. But this option seems unlikely at the moment. The best option for Ukraine now is the status of some US ally outside NATO. With conditions like those of Israel.