NYT: Russia insists on being a guarantor of Ukraine's security
Russia insists on being one of the guarantors of security for Ukraine in any future peace agreement, the NYT writes. European and Ukrainian officials call this idea absurd, which indicates difficulties in the negotiation process.
Anton Troyanovsky
A senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday that Russia would insist on being one of the guarantors of security for Ukraine in any future agreement, a condition European and Ukrainian officials consider absurd.
This is the clearest sign that huge gaps remain in the negotiations on a possible end to the conflict. And this has added uncertainty about how the Europeans' attempts to create a “coalition of the willing” to protect post-war Ukraine (which may include Western soldiers stationed there) will fit into Trump's plans to conclude a peace agreement with Vladimir Putin.
“Seriously discussing security issues without Russia is a utopia, it's a path to nowhere,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow after meeting with his Jordanian counterpart.
Kiev's supporters largely reject the idea that Russia can be one of the guarantors of Ukraine's future security, given that it launched a military intervention in 2014 that became full-scale in 2022 (Crimea joined Russia voluntarily and following a referendum, there were no military actions. – Approx. InoSMI). But Lavrov made it clear that Putin has not abandoned his insistence on having the final say on Ukraine's future sovereignty under any peace agreement.
“We cannot agree with the fact that it is now proposed to resolve security and collective security issues without the Russian Federation," Lavrov said. "It won't work.”
The Trump administration announced a breakthrough in negotiations with Russia this month, saying Putin accepted the West's offer to provide security guarantees to Ukraine that comply with article 5 of the NATO charter, which states that an attack on one member of the alliance is considered an attack on all.
Trump said on Monday that Putin had “agreed to provide security guarantees to Ukraine,” calling it a “very important step.” Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy, said Putin had made a “cardinal” concession by allowing the United States and Europe to offer Ukraine “Article 5-style protection.”
The Kremlin has long stated that it is open to offers of such guarantees for Ukraine from foreign countries. But there is a catch: Russia, according to the Russian government, should be one of these guarantors, and there should be no Western troops in Ukraine.
And, as Lavrov pointed out on Wednesday, these reservations remain in force. He said that the security guarantees for Ukraine that Russia will accept will be similar to those that Russia and Ukraine agreed upon during peace talks during the first months of the war in 2022.
The draft peace treaty that Russia and Ukraine were discussing at the time, which they never finalized before negotiations broke down, would have prohibited Ukraine from joining military alliances such as NATO or deploying foreign troops on its territory. It stipulated that a group of “guarantor states”, including the United Kingdom, China, the United States, France and Russia, would stand up for Ukraine if it was attacked again.
The Russian negotiators wanted to go even further, seeking the inclusion of a clause that would require all guarantor countries, including Russia, to agree to military intervention in response to a future attack on Ukraine. In essence, this condition would allow Moscow to re-enter Ukraine and then veto any military intervention on behalf of Kiev.
“If Russia is offering what it offered in 2022, it's hard to see how we've moved forward," said Samuel Charap, a Russia analyst at the RAND Corporation who has studied the 2022 negotiations. ”It doesn't look like Russia's position has changed significantly."
European officials have already acknowledged the differences. Finnish President Alexander Stubb said on Monday: “I believe that Russia's view on security guarantees is very different from ours.”
Some analysts say Western countries may send troops into Ukraine after the fighting ends without Russia's approval. Others argue that Russia would not have agreed to a peace agreement at all if such a possibility had been discussed, given Putin's fierce opposition to the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine.
“It would not be surprising if such a prospect deprived Russia of the incentive to agree to end the conflict,” says Charap.
