Special Envoy Steve Whitkov speaks at the Himin Peru Estimates ceremony as a temporary lawyer for the United States in the province of Colombia, hosted by US President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC, United States, May 28, 2025.
Lea Milis Reuters
A special envoy for us Steve Witkev He said on Sunday Russian president Vladimir Putin He agreed to allow the United States and European countries to grant Ukraine “protection similar to Article 5” as a security guarantee to put an end to the war.
“We managed to win the following privilege: that the United States can provide a five -like protection, which is one of the real reasons behind Ukraine’s desire for NATO,” Witkov said on Sunday. CNN.
This was the first time that we heard the Russians agreed to this. “
Article 5 of NATO says, “If the NATO ally is a victim of an armed attack, then every other member of the coalition will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the measures that it considers necessary to help the ally who attacked,” says Article 5 of NATO.
European Commission President Ursula von der Layen said on Sunday that she welcomed the security guarantees of Ukraine, and that “the European Union … is ready to conduct its share,” he said, according to what he said. Associated Press.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy He said, “a historic decision that the United States is ready to participate in security guarantees for Ukraine,” according to After x.
He wrote: “The security guarantees, as a result of our joint action, must be very practical, and protection is provided on the ground, in the air, and in the sea, and it must be developed with the participation of Europe.”
The Special Envoy Witkoff’s sponsors come just days after the president Donald Trump He met Alaska with Putin amid his country’s continuous war with Ukraine. Trump praised and managed Talks in the name of “fruitful“But the details of the meeting were so far.
Trump, in the period before his meeting with Putin, has repeatedly emphasized the need for a long -term ceasefire in the war.
The talks did not result in such an agreement, which caused anxiety between officials in Ukraine and the European countries that Trump was away from the goal.
In the days after the talks, Trump said that “the best way” to end the war is “going directly to the peace agreement.”
On Sunday said that Trump and Putin “covered all other issues necessary for a peace agreement” during their meeting for hours, without providing additional details.
“We started to see some moderation in the way they think about reaching a final peace agreement,” he said.
The peace deal “is still long -term”
Foreign Minister Marco Rubio He also said on Sunday that Russia will face “additional consequences” if Trump’s efforts to end the war do not succeed, but it warned against the implementation of additional sanctions.
“At the moment when additional penalties are imposed, additional additional penalties, the conversation stops,” he said. ABC News.
“We are still far from the peace agreement,” Rubio added.
“We have made progress in the sense that we have identified the areas of possible agreement, but there are still some large areas of disagreement,” he said. “We are not at the edge of the peace agreement, we are not on one edge, but I think the progress has been made about one.”
Trump is scheduled to meet with Zelinski and European leaders on monday.
What is at stake
If the Kremlin actually agree to the security conditions of Ukraine, similar to Article 5 of NATO, this will be a blatant exit from at least one of the justifications of the former Russian president to attack the country.
Russia said that any decision on the war will need to address the “root causes of the conflict”, and most importantly, that Ukraine results in and its aspirations to join NATO.
The Kremlin also made it clear that he wanted any peace agreement to include international recognition of the inclusion of Crimea and large parts of eastern Ukraine.
After Friday’s summit, Trump said that a peace agreement could be reached if Zelinski agreed to abandon the Donbas region, The New York Times mentionedQuoted from senior European officials.
But Zelinski was insisting that Kiev will never get to know any of its sovereign lands as part of Russia, even the areas that Moscow already included. Ukrainian president said that this would violate the country’s constitution. Ukraine also said that she wanted any peace agreement to include guarantees that Russia will not invade again.
“Everyone agrees that the border should not be changed by force,” Zelinski wrote on X.
“Everyone supports that the main problems must be solved with the participation of Ukraine in a triple form – Ukraine, the United States and the Russian President.”
Rubio said on Sunday on NBC News Which – which “We must talk about the shape of the lands and what the border lines will appear at the end of this conflict.”
He added: “We must talk about how to rebuild Ukraine, and how to rebuild a country that has been attacked a lot over the three and a half years last year.”
– Terry Coleen of CNBC contributed to this report
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2025-08-17 18:31:00
