US offers Ukraine NATO-like security pact, with caveats

What happened

The Trump administration offered Ukraine “NATO-like Article 5” security guarantees if it agrees to a peace deal with Russia, a senior U.S. official told reporters Monday night, after two days of high-level talks in Berlin. But “those guarantees will not be on the table forever.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders who attended the talks welcomed the U.S. guarantees, but all sides acknowledged significant differences over demands that Ukraine give up territory Russia has failed to seize in battle.

Who said what

“I think we’re closer now than we have been, ever,” President Donald Trump, who called into the Berlin meeting, told reporters Monday night. Negotiators solved probably “90% of the issues between Ukraine and Russia,” the U.S. official told reporters, and Trump “believes he can get Russia to accept” the “NATO-like” guarantee and European Union membership for Ukraine. The official did not give specifics on the U.S. guarantees but said they “would have to go before the Senate.”

The Trump team argues that the “bitter pill of massive territorial concessions” in the Donbas would be palatable to Ukraine if served up with “robust security guarantees,” an accelerated path into the EU and “billions on the table for rebuilding,” Axios said. But Ukrainian officials and their European allies “are wary that Ukraine could agree to make painful concessions, only for Russia to balk at the deal and hold out for more.”

“Moscow has yet to agree to any of the changes discussed in Germany and has not indicated any willingness to do so,” Reuters said. Still, Trump’s “unprecedented offer” for security guarantees has “sparked some optimism from European leaders” about a pathway to peace.

What next?

More talks are expected this weekend “somewhere in the United States, could be Miami, with working groups, military people, looking at maps,” a U.S. official told reporters. “It was not clear when or how the Trump administration would bring the new details to Moscow,” Politico said. Trump and his team “have said they hope to achieve a peace deal by the end of the year,” The Washington Post said, but Ukrainian and European officials view that as “ambitious.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, asked Monday about a proposed Christmas ceasefire, said predicting a time frame for a Ukraine peace deal was a “thankless task.”

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