Despite pressure from Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is clear his country will only agree to a peace deal with Russia if it’s backed by iron-clad security guarantees.
Trump personally told Zelenskyy and European leaders during their Monday meeting that Ukraine will have “Article 5-like” NATO protections, but omitted any specifics.
On Tuesday, the “coalition of the willing” of Kyiv’s allies tackled the issue, while U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading a commission with Ukrainian and European officials to hammer out security guarantees.
Planning teams are meeting “in the coming days to further strengthen plans to deliver robust security guarantees and prepare for the deployment of a reassurance force if the hostilities ended,” said a Tuesday statement from U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
It’s a massive problem — and one that Kyiv’s allies have taken on numerous times over the last three years without ever coming up with an answer.
The most obvious solution — and the one that Kyiv really wants — is to allow Ukraine to join NATO, where it would be protected by the alliance’s Article 5 common defense pact. But the United States (backed quietly by some European countries) has ruled that out.
Having to cobble together a bespoke mission opens up huge complications. Which country would send troops? What would be the conditions of their deployment? How would they react if attacked? Who would pay?
On Tuesday it was clear that the United States will not be deploying soldiers to Ukraine
“I can tell you he’s definitively ruled out boots on the ground,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
The U.S. president was blunt about who should bear the burden. “We’ve got the European nations, and they’ll front-load it,” Trump said in an appearance on Fox News, adding: “France and Germany, a couple of them, U.K. They want to have, you know, boots on the ground.”
French President Emmanuel Macron drove the point home earlier that day, telling French television that Europe was ready to deploy “reassurance forces” — British, French, German, Turkish and others — to carry out operations “in the air, at sea and on land.”
Lots of talk, little action
But behind the big words lies a messy reality.
For all the talk of “boots on the ground,” the precise shape of Ukraine’s security guarantees remains undefined — and that lack of clarity is sowing confusion among Kyiv’s allies.
A European security official warned that any force would need “a combat mandate” at a minimum to defend itself if attacked by Russia — but stressed that such a mission would not be responsible for enforcing peace.
That, the official said, would remain the job of the Ukrainian military. French officials likewise caution against “buying something theoretical.”
The lack of definition also exposes the weaknesses of those most eager to lead. Macron and Starmer — both leaders of nuclear powers with U.N. Security Council seats — are keen to show they still play a major role on the global stage. Yet both face political and economic headwinds that feed skepticism about the ability of their countries to send forces into Ukraine.
“If one considers how politically weak Macron and Starmer are, it is not easy to see how this plan will go,” said one EU diplomat. “It’s not an easy time economically.”
Germany remains on the fence. Social Democratic lawmaker Andreas Schwarz, responsible for parliamentary oversight of the country’s defense budget, underlined the limits. “That’s a decision the parliament has to decide,” he told POLITICO, stressing that military deployment is not an executive decision.
Beyond that, Germany’s army is too small and the renewed flow of money into defense too recent to allow for a large deployment to the east. Even sending 5,000 troops on a permanent mission to Lithuania is stretching the Bundeswehr.
“We simply don’t have the personnel for a large contingent,” Schwarz said. “Even a small deployment would be a challenge.”
Turkey — with its large army and Black Sea experience — could play a key role. But it’s also politically messy — with Greece and Cyprus leery of allowing Ankara to access any EU funds for its military.
“It’s too early to contemplate such a development,” Selim Yenel, a former Turkish ambassador to the EU, told POLITICO. And Ankara, he warned, would demand something in return. “As for the quid pro quo, it would still be difficult to overcome the EU’s obstacles on the funds for defense. I’m sure the EU will find a way to prevent Turkey from having any access.”
Poland, now with the EU’s largest military, is ruling out sending troops to Ukraine, while saying it would help with the logistics of any mission to the east.
“Poland has its own strategic dilemma because it has borders with Russia and Belarus so it cannot weaken the forces needed to prevent an attack,” said a senior Polish official, speaking on condition of being granted anonymity.
Italian PM Giorgia Meloni is also wary of sending soldiers to Ukraine and has argued with Macron, stressing it’s wiser to offer Ukraine a defense pact rather than troops, who could risk getting embroiled in a war with Russia.
“If one of our soldiers were to die, would we pretend nothing happened or should we react? Because if we react, it’s obvious that NATO will have to do it. And then we might as well activate the [Article 5] clause immediately,” Meloni was reported as saying.
Moscow says no
There is reason for caution. Despite the warm glow following Vladimir Putin’s chummy Alaska summit with Trump, Moscow is adamantly against any NATO troops being deployed to Ukraine.
“We reiterate our long-standing position of unequivocally rejecting any scenarios involving the deployment of NATO military contingents in Ukraine, as this risks uncontrollable escalation with unpredictable consequences,” warned Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
But Ukraine has been badly burned by declarations not backed up by soldiers from countries willing to put their lives on the line. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum saw the U.S. and the U.K. pledge security assurances in return for Ukraine’s giving up its nuclear weapons, which was followed by numerous treaties with Russia that were all broken.
For Kyiv, the debate over security guarantees is depressingly familiar. Already in 2023, ahead of NATO’s Vilnius summit, the same arguments played out — and the same questions were left unanswered.
“Sometimes,” said a senior Eastern European diplomat granted anonymity to discuss internal alliance thinking at the time, “it is difficult to understand what we are talking about.”
The senior Polish official was even blunter, arguing that the entire discussion is premature: “Nothing will happen because the fighting isn’t stopping,” he told POLITICO. “The Americans seem unwilling to move too far toward Russia and Europeans continue to support Ukraine so we have a deadlock.”
Luke McGee contributed to this report.
The post How to keep Putin at bay? The deadlock over security guarantees for Ukraine. appeared first on Politico.
