Ukrainian: Putin’s security guarantees asks too – what are the terms of

Negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine stumble into fundamental disagreements: from the “security guarantees” required by Moscow to the issue of NATO enlargement and the future of Ukrainian Armed Forces. Russia calls for commitments that limit Kiev’s sovereignty, while the West is trying to find alternative protection mechanisms, with Ukraine rejecting any term that would leave it exposed to new invasions.

Diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine have been focused after the Trump-Putin Summit in Alaska on Western guarantees for the country’s future security. However, the Kremlin states that it must secure its own “security guarantees” before depositing its weapons.

As the New York Times notes in their analysis, what Vladimir Putin calls “security guarantees” to protect Russia would drastically limit Ukrainian domination, leaving the country exposed to a new Russian attack and, according to many supporters, would make it a state.

The tension around the “security guarantees” and the different ways in which the term is interpreted by the Kremlin and the West emphasizes the fundamental difficulty of achieving any peace agreement to end the Russian invasion.

Putin’s demands for Russia’s security have remained unchanged for years and reflect a list of complaints, which it often sums up as the “roots” of war.

According to President Donald Trump, Russian concerns are “finally heard” in Washington, Putin says. “We can now see that there is some mutual understanding,” he said this week at the Summit in China, referring to his meeting with Trump in Alaska last month.

It follows what Putin means when he talks about “security guarantees” and how it compares to Ukraine’s position.

NATO enlargement over time of Kremlin

Russia’s most frequent demand to end the war is the guarantee that Ukraine will never join the alliance.

The eastern expansion of the military alliance under the leadership of the US after the collapse of the Soviet Union has shaped, more than any other factor, Vladimir Putin’s revanch worldview, according to his statements, directly contributing to his decision to invade Ukraine.

For years, Putin has reiterated a widespread Russian belief: that when NATO received former Soviet democracies and Moscow satellites in the 1990s and early 2000s, the United States violated promises that they had made to the last Soviet leader.

Official restrictions on NATO enlargement have never been. However, Putin has turned to a cornerstone of his foreign policy, the “revenge” for the supposed humiliation that Russia suffered from the West, when it was weakened after the end of the Soviet Union.

Since the start of his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin continues to describe it, among other things, as a struggle against NATO enlargement. This week he said that Russia would accept Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, but reiterated that it would never tolerate its accession to NATO.

“We were always opposed to Ukraine’s accession to the North Atlantic Alliance,” he told reporters in China on Wednesday. “The security of one country cannot come to the detriment of another country, in this case of the Russian Federation.”

Complex alternatives to NATO expansion

Donald Trump has stated that NATO will not accept Ukraine in the alliance. Analysts estimate that the Kremlin wants this to be reflected in writing or even by a change in the Ukraine Constitution in order to secure its “neutral” status. However, both NATO and Ukraine have ruled out any binding restriction on their security policies.

Ukraine’s Western allies work on a possible solution to overcome the impasse. They are discussing an agreement that will replace NATO’s mutual defense agreement with bilateral agreements, which will force Ukraine to intervene in the event of an attack. To make such a deterrent figure persuasive, France and Britain are leading efforts to create a coalition of countries that could possibly park troops in Ukraine.

But Russia categorically states that it is opposed to the presence of troops by NATO member states in Ukraine. The Kremlin has also demanded to participate in any international security guarantees for Kiev, which, as analysts note, is equivalent to “the fox kept by the coop”.

Efforts to officials in the United States and Europe to draw up a security agreement for Ukraine without taking into account the Kremlin’s position is unlikely to be attributed, says Samuel Charap, Russia’s expert in Rand Corporation, a Washington Security Research Agency.

“In a way, it’s like putting the cart in front of the horse,” he said. “If one side presents to the other security guarantees as an accomplished event, it is unlikely to lead to a negotiating solution.”

Russia wants smaller Ukrainian army

Another major disagreement in the peace talks remains the future military development of Ukraine. The country is rapidly developing its own defense industry and proceeds with a lot of billions of equipment. The Ukrainian government hopes that with these policies the country will be able to defend itself even if international security guarantees are not implemented.

However, the Kiev aggressive re -equipment program is in direct contrast to what Russia considers its own security interests.

One of the Russian conditions, which was made in low -level talks in Istanbul in June, is the imposition of a ceiling on the size of the Ukrainian army and restrictions on the quantity and types of weapons. Moscow presents this requirement as a guarantee that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not be able to carry out offensive operations in practice, that is, prevent any attempt to recapture occupied territories.

Ukraine has stated that such restrictions would be equivalent to capitulation and left the country exposed to future invasions.

“The ideal scenario for Russia is Ukraine to remain defenseless and slave,” said Samuel Tsarap. “In a successful negotiation, both sides should be able to defend what they have without being able to threaten each other.”