NEW YORK (AP) — Russia’s Vladimir Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump to allow the United States and its European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the 3 1/2-year war in Ukraine, special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday.
“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 told CNN’s “State of the Union.” He added that it “was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that” and called them “game-changing.”
Article 5, at the heart of the 32-member military alliance, states that an armed attack against one or more of the members shall be considered an attack against all members.
Witkoff, who had joined Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the talks Friday at a military base in Alaska, offered few details on how such an agreement would work. But it appeared to be a major shift for Putin and could serve as a workaround to his long-standing objection to Ukraine’s potential NATO membership.
Outlining some of the details about the private discussions, Witkoff also said Russia had agreed to enact a law that it would not “go after any other European countries and violate their sovereignty. And there was plenty more.”
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