Preventing the 2022 stage from happening again. Donald Trump discussed on Monday, August 18 with European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of “security guarantees” for Ukraine, an essential pillar of any peace agreement according to kyiv.
Ukrainians have Westerners to establish solid mechanisms. In the past, neither the Budapest memorandum in 1994, nor Minsk’s agreements in 2014 and 2015 had allowed Russia to disadreate the country.
In his social network, the US president spoke of security guarantees provided by “several European countries”, in “coordination” with the United States. But the contours of the system that would be implemented are still very lazy, and the Kremlin hastened to temper US advertisements.
Towards a mechanism inspired by NATO?
After the Alaska summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the special emissary of the US president, Steve Witkoff, said that the United States “could obtain the following concession: that the United States can offer similar protection to article 5, which is one of the true reasons why Ukraine wishes to join NATO.”
The NATO dorsal column, article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, affirms that any attack on one of the alliance member countries is considered an attack against all. Each State must take “immediately (…) as an action that it considers necessary, including the use of the armed force.”
Therefore, there is no automaticity of direct military commitment. The answer can, for example, take the form of logistics support or the supply of military teams.
The implementation of a mechanism inspired by article 5 questions specialists, while Donald Trump himself in doubt about the attitude of the United States in case of an attack by one of the members of the Atlantic Alliance. Article 5 of the NATO Treaty can “interfere with several ways”, had fallen on the eve of an NATO summit last June, while presiding for member states to invest 5% of their GDP in defense.
· European forces deployed in Ukraine?
The “voluntary coalition” from about thirty countries, mainly European, says it is ready to support Ukraine to avoid a resumption of hostilities. Military planning work has been carried out since February. According to several sources close to the AFP file, they provide support for the regeneration of the Ukrainian army, presented as the first of the country’s security guarantees.
There are also aerial resources to protect heaven and Ukrainian traffic in the Black Sea. Finally, a deployment of land in Ukraine of “a few thousand men” is expected, according to Emmanuel Macron.
This Tuesday, August 19, the members of the “coalition” met with videoconference under the auspices of the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and Emmanuel Macron, to inform the interviews the previous day in Washington.
European and American planning teams must contact themselves in “the next few days” to “prepare the deployment of a reinsurance force if hostilities ended,” said Keir Starmer spokesman.
Researcher at the Carnegie Europe Foundation, Rym Momtaz asks the AFP to “not overestimate European unit” around this plan. France, the United Kingdom or Baltic countries have expressed their availability in recent months. But “those who have the great land battalions in Europe do not want to go, Warsaw and Berlin at the moment say no,” adds the independent researcher Stéphane Audrand.
What role for Americans?
Many European countries require the existence of an American “support”) as a condition for any commitment on their part. “This means that Americans would commit to defend and support, not directly Ukraine, but troops from NATO member countries deployed in Ukraine,” said Nicolas Tenzer, geostrategy at Science Po.
In addition to the French, “there are not many people in the Alliance (Atlantic) who know how to think of military action without the Americans, not even the British,” justifies Stéphane Audrand, interviewed by AFP.
On the subject, Donald Trump was still evasive. If he talked about aerial support, his spokesman Karoline Leavitt recalls that the US president, “he said there would be no US troops in the field in Ukraine.”
“If NATO has worked to contain the Warsaw Pact, it is because since 1949 a treaty ratified by the United States has been duplicated by a significant military presence as close as possible to the iron curtain. Impossible to attack Europe without killing thousands of GI and impossible for an US administration to look for political fuel,” he develops the Stéphane audience in his X. “
What would happen in case of a new Russian assault?
It is the great unknown of these security guarantees: how to protect Ukraine while avoiding a direct confrontation with the Russian army? “Guarantee the security of a country means, at the end of the ends, one thing: being ready to fight if necessary to keep it. It is as simple as that. And that is what is trapped for Europeans,” says Stéphane Audrand.
“The main question, and that those responsible do not mention at all, and we understand that it is not publicly, it is the doctrine of the commitment,” abounds Nicolas Tenzer, author of Our war (Ed. Of the Observatory, 2024).
Clearly, “if you have French, Finnish or British troops that are attacked, or if a building, a school or a Ukrainian hospital are bombarded together, will these troops intervene and how?” Ask the specialist.
“And intervene is not only to activate the anti -aircraft defense against drones or missiles, which seems essential, but is possibly hitting not only the arrow, but the goalkeeper who can be on the other side of the Russian border,” he continues.
Emmanuel Macron, who had caused a uproar in Europe last year by evoking the first to send to terrestrial troops, recalled on Sunday that “these forces do not intend to maintain a front line or participate in a hot conflict, but to sign a solidarity from a strategic point of view.” “But the reality is that at some point, they can have the need to fight and get involved. There is a time when the question will arise,” says Nicolas Tenzer.
What does Russia say?
At the Alaska Summit, Vladimir Putin, for the first time, mentioned “guarantees” for Ukraine. A statement that must be put in perspective because Russia, which rejects any entry of Ukraine into NATO, also firmly opposes the deployment of European troops in the Ukrainian territory.
“We reaffirm our long -standing position that consists in unequivocally rejecting any scenario that involves the deployment of NATO military contingents in Ukraine, since this runs the risk of leading to an uncontrollable escalation with unpredictable consequences,” said spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday in a statement.
This Wednesday, the Russian diplomacy head Sergei Lavrov warned that any discussion about Western security guarantees to offer Ukraine that it will not take into account the Moscow position will lead “anywhere.”
“West perfectly understands that seriously discussing safety guarantees without Russia is utopian, it is a path that does not lead anywhere,” said Sergei Lavrov after speaking with his Jordana counterpart in Moscow. “We cannot accept that collective security problems are now discussed without Russia,” he added.
In X, the Russian Strategic Thought Specialist Dimitri Minic states that “Moscow will not accept any solid security guarantee for Ukraine.” “Putin will never accept any path to the war that leaves Free and Functional Ukraine. (…) If Putin seems to accept this, it is a trap,” Janis Klugo adds in the same social network, a researcher with the group of German geopolitical experts SWP.
Source: BFM TV
