‘We were able to win the following concession: that the US could offer Article 5-like protection, one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in Nato’
US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump to allow the US and European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling Nato’s collective defence mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the war.
“We were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in Nato,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union. Witkoff said it was the first time he had heard Putin agree to that.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking at a press conference in Brussels with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that “we welcome President Trump’s willingness to contribute to Article 5-like security guarantees for Ukraine” and the “coalition of the willing, including the European Union, is ready to do its share”.
Witkoff, offering some of the first details of what was discussed at Friday’s summit in Alaska, said the two sides agreed to “robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing”.
