What security guarantees from the US does Ukraine need and how Europe can influence Trump
A process Ukraine has long been waiting for has finally been launched: international consultations on security guarantees.
The idea gained momentum after it received the United States’ blessing during a multilateral meeting with European leaders in Washington, at which the US promised the European leaders transatlantic support.
Repetitive though it may sound, the European security guarantors for Ukraine needed guarantees themselves – from the United States. The result was that Ukraine didn’t just need guarantees (European), but "guaranteed guarantees" – guarantees guaranteed by the United States.
Read more about why Europe cannot provide effective guarantees on its own in the article by Sergiy Solodkyy, Director of the New Europe Center: Security guarantees for Ukraine: main focus and challenges in Europe–Trump talks.
Europeans openly admit that they don’t have the capacity to realise their ambitions – from the number of soldiers in European armies to intelligence sharing capabilities.
Moreover, some Coalition of the Willing countries were unwilling to join if the format was perceived as "anti-American".
So European politicians worked hard to try to persuade Washington to rethink its approach.
A year ago, when calls for negotiations with Russia were growing louder, the New Europe Center drafted an analytical paper entitled "Security Matrix of Ukraine".
Our key conclusion was that whatever the path to ending the war may look like, for Ukraine it must lie through security guarantees. This had to be a fundamental precondition for Kyiv in any diplomatic scenario for ending or even suspending the war.
Unfortunately, the US has only just realised how important it is.
Now, for Trump, a ceasefire is no longer on the agenda; instead, the US has agreed on the need to work out security guarantees.
Of course, there is no reason to believe that the process of developing security guarantees will be successful in the near future, still less that Russia would agree to any guarantees designed and put forward by the Coalition of the Willing.
For now, the bitter reality is that the United States is not particularly eager to participate in initiatives in support of Ukraine.
Yet the fact that the US has agreed to coordinate the working out of guarantees is still a major step forward. From here on, much will depend on the arguments advanced by Europe’s experienced military leaders and diplomats.
It was published two years ago, when the Center’s analytical team analysed the lessons learned from security models in other countries. At the time, the Israeli, South Korean, West German and Taiwanese models were the most extensively discussed.
The main conclusion of our research, however, is that most of the models analysed did not emerge fully-formed as we know them today. They were mostly modified and evolved over time. They developed gradually.
In this sense, it is important to understand that what seems impossible today may become feasible later.
Therefore, whatever security guarantees are proposed, it should not be forgotten that they may be temporary.
Moreover, the past six months have shown how swiftly Trump can adjust his position. And his current view of Ukraine joining NATO could undergo similar adjustments.