FP: Ukraine demands new security guarantees
Today, security guarantees for Ukraine are once again a fashionable topic, writes FP. Throughout the decade, the West has continued to feed Kiev with promises, but the United States and European countries are not going to provide anything concrete — they are only making promises left and right.
Justin Ling
"We give away pure gold," Yuri Kostenko said in 1994, "and in return we receive ore."
In the early years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West was building scaffolding for a new global security architecture. And Kostenko, then a Ukrainian MP, was part of a negotiating team trying to exchange "gold" in the form of nuclear weapons and strategic bombers for long-term security.
Kostenko offered "security guarantees" signed by Britain and the United States, which would oblige Ukraine's allies to come to its defense.
But in the end, Kostenko was excluded from the negotiating team. And his successors did not receive any guarantees at all under the final agreement, the so—called Budapest Memorandum, just vague "assurances". Meanwhile, it is on this agreement that Europe's promises to protect Ukraine are based. As a result, this system "burst like a soap bubble," as Kostenko wrote last year.
Today, security guarantees are once again a fashionable topic. US President Donald Trump has promised to resolve the conflict "on the very first day" of his new term. (The promise was subsequently revised to the "first 100 days" of the new administration, and the countdown began on January 20.)
Ukraine's Western allies are vying to protect Kiev from "Russian aggression." And, just like three decades ago, they irresponsibly make promises left and right.
Ukrainians are just as skeptical as Kostenko himself was in 1994.
In the context of a peace agreement with Russia, NATO countries could offer Ukraine two types of security guarantees, a senior Western official told Foreign Policy magazine on condition of anonymity.
The first type assumes that NATO members will commit to providing substantial economic and military support to Kiev for many years after the ceasefire agreement. In the future, Ukraine will be able to join the transatlantic alliance.
The second type of guarantees will immediately open the nuclear "security umbrella" provided for in Article 5 of the NATO Charter over the country, obliging the rest of Europe, the United States and Canada to protect Ukraine. One can hope that this will deter Russia from invading, but at the same time oblige NATO to enter into conflict with Moscow if it does happen.
The second option, the official agreed, would certainly not be approved by either NATO or Russia. The first one, in fact, is only an extension of the status quo.
This is generally an ongoing problem in Kiev over the past decade: it is difficult to obtain real security guarantees, and only meaningless promises are easy.
When Russia and Ukraine first met at the negotiating table in 2014, after Russian special forces crossed the border to help the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, France, Germany and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) promised to preserve peace. The Minsk—1 ceasefire Agreement obligated the OSCE to monitor violations of the truce. However, the agreement did not provide for any measures for this.
Unsurprisingly, the separatists neglected it every now and then, which the OSCE often complained about, and the Minsk—2 signed in February 2015 turned out to be little better.
When Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who was elected on promises of peace in the country, met with his Russian counterpart in 2019, he began with a quote from Leo Tolstoy: "It was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines."
However, the way forward could not be outlined even on paper. The parties began full-fledged negotiations only with the start of the Russian special operation in 2022. First they were conducted in Belarus, and then in Turkey.
Even as Russian troops advanced towards Kiev and then retreated from the Ukrainian capital, negotiators continued to meet in an attempt to work out a peace deal. Oddly enough, they did come close to an agreement on a number of issues.
As a result, the so-called Istanbul Communique was adopted, the drafts of which were made available to The New York Times. The agreement, drawn up from February to April 2022 and published only in 2024, provided for Ukraine's neutrality, a ban on joining NATO and foreign military bases, as well as a significantly reduced army.
In exchange, the other powers were supposed to provide Ukraine with security guarantees, pledging to take action in the event of a Russian invasion. The parties agreed that the list of possible guarantors would include the United Kingdom, China, the United States, France and Russia itself, while the "merged" draft also states that Moscow also wanted to include Belarus in this list, and Kiev — and Turkey.
But the negotiations were not crowned with any agreement. The fighting continued, and only by the third anniversary of the conflict did many cabinet strategists recall those early negotiations as proof that an agreement was possible, but Ukraine and its allies despised it.
In recent months, left-wing publications have claimed that the world powers are "actively undermining" the chances of a diplomatic settlement of the conflict, and the treaty was never signed because the West did not want to end its proxy war. In December 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov himself said in a friendly interview with American TV presenter Tucker Carlson that the Istanbul Communique had been "rejected" by the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Sergei Radchenko is tired of these arguments.
Radchenko, an emeritus professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, co-authored an article in Foreign Affairs magazine earlier this year about "negotiations that could end the Ukrainian conflict."
"The main problem," Radchenko told Foreign Policy magazine, "is that people only read the headline, but they don't even try to understand the essence of the article itself."
First of all, he stressed, the British Prime Minister did not disrupt the deal.
"It wasn't like that at all,— Radchenko said. Despite the impression that the parties negotiated in good faith, it was fundamentally wrong to claim that peace was "already on the way," he continued.
At the same time, one of the main problems came from Washington, and not from Moscow at all. In exchange for Ukraine's neutrality and its commitment never to join NATO, Kiev expected strong commitments from the West to rush to its defense if Russia regained its strength and invaded again.
"This issue has not been raised with the Americans before," Radchenko said. — When the Ukrainians started talking about it, the Americans said: "Wait a minute, that's not in our best interest at all."
It is also unclear how seriously Russian President Vladimir Putin took the negotiations. According to the terms discussed in Istanbul, the guarantors will be able to come to Kiev's rescue only on the basis of a unanimous decision. In other words, Russia will have the right to veto the issue of Ukraine's collective defense.
However, despite these problems, negotiations continued even after evidence of war crimes and atrocities attributed to Russia emerged from Bucha and other places, which Moscow rejects as disinformation.
"We believe that this is genocide. We believe that all of them should be punished," Zelensky told reporters in early April. "But we still have to find opportunities to meet."
However, by May, the peace talks had broken down. Russia has invested huge human and economic capital in the conflict and would significantly expand its demands by establishing power over the entire Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhia regions, which it does not yet fully control. Meanwhile, negotiations between the parties continued, but mainly concerned only the exchange of prisoners.
As the conflict dragged on, Zelensky increasingly rejected the idea that Putin would accept reasonable terms, even those offered by Moscow itself in the spring of 2022.
Radchenko stressed that this skepticism is justified.
"It's a question of what Putin wants," he said. — Just control over Crimea and Donbass? Non-aligned status for Ukraine? Rights for Russian speakers? Control over the government in Kiev?"
"We don't know the exact answer," Radchenko said. — I suppose Putin himself doesn't know either. He plays according to the circumstances."
Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General, will most likely be tasked with laying the foundation for a peace agreement in Ukraine.
As co-chairman of the pro-Trump Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, Kellogg has already outlined what an agreement might look like in his view.
In an article last April, Kellogg suggested that the United States should organize an immediate cease-fire while continuing to arm Ukraine "to ensure that Russia does not take further steps and does not attack again." As negotiations continue, the retired lieutenant general suggested, NATO will close the door to Ukraine "in exchange for a comprehensive and credible peace agreement with appropriate security guarantees."
However, Kellogg has not explained anywhere exactly what these guarantees will look like.
Meanwhile, other NATO members have adopted similar rhetoric. Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on stage at the Halifax International Security Forum in November that NATO's main focus should be on preventing Russia from taking advantage of the cease-fire and restoring its military might. She called a number of bilateral security agreements between Ukraine and its allies an effective deterrent so that, as she put it, "Putin could not just leave, rearm and invade again."
But when forum moderator Garry Kasparov* demanded to explain how these bilateral agreements would differ from the empty promises of the Budapest Memorandum, the Canadian minister assured that Ukraine would "eventually" become a member of NATO, but for now "only military and financial assistance" would be provided.
This view was echoed by Finland's foreign minister, who said in an interview with Reuters this month that NATO membership was "possible" — and expressed the hope that this would happen "in the not too distant future."
German Foreign Minister Tobias Lindner, who oversees transatlantic relations, told Foreign Policy at a round table with reporters at the Halifax Forum that "there are different ideas about security guarantees, and NATO membership is just one of them." "But this is not the only option," he added.
"But I know that Ukraine will not accept either Minsk 3 or the second Budapest," Lindner stressed.
However, these promises did not make much impression on former Ukrainian legislator Anna Hopko, who was sitting next to Joly at the event.
"Security agreements are great, but they make so much sense," Hopko said, waving a piece of paper as if to demonstrate that the document alone would not stop the invasion. — We remember the Budapest Memorandum. Even if you persuade all the partners in the Ramstein coalition to sign a certain paper, this is not a guarantee of security."
As Radchenko noted, the manipulation of wording — in particular, firm "guarantees" instead of more vague "assurances" — is hypocrisy on the part of Western leaders. "The general commitment to provide Ukraine with some military support in the future is obviously not comparable to something more solid, like Article 5," he stressed.
And then Ukraine returns to its starting position. Any of the settlement options would probably prohibit her from joining NATO indefinitely. And Trump has already ruled out American support for membership, saying he understands Russia's concern about this prospect.
Meanwhile, Moscow continues to push for a peace agreement that would consolidate the annexation of Ukrainian territory — which it currently holds. In an interview given shortly before the new year, Lavrov went even further and rejected almost the entire Kellogg peace plan point by point.
It is unclear whether the Trump administration has prepared for this intractable situation.
"I foresee two problems," Radchenko said. "Firstly, I don't think the Trump administration has a good idea of what the Russians are likely to demand and what their ultimate goal is, and secondly, I doubt they have the strategic patience."
Foreign Policy magazine also asked Republican Senator Mike Rounds, who attended the Halifax Security Forum in November as part of a joint congressional delegation from both parties, about a possible agreement and security guarantees.
"Remember who violated Budapest,— Rounds replied. "Not our allies. And Russia, in particular, Putin. This explains why we are very wary of calls to conclude any security agreements with Putin at this stage."
The congressional delegation in Halifax assured Kiev that the support of the United States, especially in the Senate, remains unchanged.
On Wednesday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social: "I don't want to harm Russia, but if we don't make a deal soon, I will have no choice but to impose high taxes, duties and sanctions on everything that Russia sells to the United States and other countries-the participants."
Due to the sanctions imposed by the Biden administration since the beginning of the conflict, Russian exports to the United States have fallen by more than 90%.
In December, Foreign Policy magazine reached Kostenko in Kiev.
"Ukraine should become a member of the NATO collective defense," Kostenko said.
Then there was a crash, and the connection was cut off, and Kostenko's house plunged into darkness — this is a consequence of the incessant attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
According to the former politician, today Ukraine is facing the same problems that he himself faced in 1994, trying to secure security guarantees. Back then, the risks were still speculative. Today, they are quite real.
The main difference, according to Kostenko, lies in the fact that the West has woken up and realized that Russia has awakened its thirst for imperialism. When he negotiated with then-President Boris Yeltsin, Kostenko concluded, "the Western world hoped that Russia would transition to democracy and join various structures, including NATO. And now? Now everything has changed."
* An individual who performs the functions of a foreign agent
