President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and other European leaders agree: Ukraine must have security protections in any Ukraine-Russia peace deal.
During the White House meeting Monday between Trump, Zelenskyy, and seven European leaders, discussion of security guarantees for Ukraine took center stage.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine, and this is one of the key points that we need to consider, and we are going to be considering that at the table,” Trump said at the meeting Monday.
Neither Trump nor the European leaders have explained what those security guarantees might include, but K.T. McFarland, former U.S. deputy national security adviser to Trump, said we do know what they won’t entail.
Trump has made it clear that “NATO membership is just off the table for a bunch of reasons,” McFarland told The Daily Signal, adding that “U.S. boots on the ground is probably off the table,” as well.
National security and foreign policy experts think security protections for Ukraine could, or should, include something similar to NATO’s Article 5 protections, European troops stationed in Ukraine indefinitely, border security, or increased weaponry and military assets in Ukraine. Experts stress security protections for Ukraine must work to deter and discourage future Russian aggression.
Article 5
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said NATO Article 5-type security protections for Ukraine are on the table.
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that an attack against one NATO member nation “shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them” will assist the other nation attacked as each member country “deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
Victoria Coates, former deputy national security adviser to Trump, says Article 5-type protection for Ukraine could include language stating “any attack on Ukraine may trigger a U.S. military response,” but would likely not guarantee such a response.
European Troops
Because Trump has ruled out U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine, Europe might send troops, likely primarily from France and Britain, according to Nile Gardiner, a Heritage Foundation expert on Europe who formerly served as a foreign policy researcher and aide to then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The exact number of troops France or Britain might send is unclear, Gardiner said, but he estimates it might be around 10,000 total. In that case, the “U.S. role would be basically to provide support for European forces on the ground,” he told The Daily Signal.
“Support” could include air support and intelligence or logistics support to Ukrainian and European troops on the ground, according to Gardiner.
McFarland agrees that security protections for Ukraine might involve European troops on the ground, adding that the U.S. might then backfill military responsibility those troops had filled within NATO.
Border Security
A security guarantee for Ukraine should include “a secure eastern border with Russia,” Coates, who also serves as vice president of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.
“I would like to see NATO countries that border Russia go into a collective border security arrangement” to protect Ukraine, Coates said. Security protections for Ukraine are “meaningless if Putin still has a straight shot into Ukraine,” she added.
Belarus, Latvia, Estonia and Finland border Russia north of Ukraine. These nations could “coordinate with Ukraine, share technology, [and] share equipment,” Coates said.
A security barrier could include various technologies, sensors, physical troops, and even a physical wall, according to Coates.
Weapons
In July, Trump announced the U.S. would sell weapons to NATO, which would in turn provide Ukraine with the weaponry. There is a need for more weapons and defense systems in Ukraine to ensure a peace deal does not lead to another invasion of Ukraine, according to Kateryna Lisunova, media adviser for the pro-Ukraine advocacy group Razom for Ukraine.
In a “perfect reality,” Lisunova said, security protections for Ukraine would include the nuclear weapons and bombers Ukraine gave up in the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine had a large nuclear arsenal following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but in 1994, Ukraine, Russia, the U.S., and the United Kingdom signed the agreement for Ukraine to give up the weapons.
Lisunova acknowledges Ukraine being made a nuclear power again is not an option on the table. Instead, security protections for Ukraine should include an air-defense system, fighter jets, long-range missiles, and no restrictions on the use of those weapons, Lisunova told The Daily Signal.
Timeline
The details of what security protections mean for Ukraine are expected to be made clear following a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, which the White House says will take place in the coming weeks, and a subsequent trilateral meeting among Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy.
“I called President Putin, and we’re trying to work out a meeting with President Zelenskyy,” Trump told Fox News on Tuesday morning.
