NATO Trying to Game Russia Over Security Guarantees for Ukraine, and Moscow Says Nyet!
Steve Bryen, as usual, put up an excellent piece at his Substack describing a major mistake by Donald Trump regarding the issue of providing security guarantees to Ukraine as part of a peace deal with Russia. According to Steve:
The Trump administration made a massive political blunder on August 20th in its pursuit of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. The blunder centered on a “virtual” meeting led by NATO.
Prior to that meeting, Trump had promised the Russians that any deal would rule out Ukraine’s NATO membership. Apparently the Russians read Trump’s assurance to include no NATO peacekeepers. That was a mistake.
The NATO-led meeting was intended to lay out military options to meet Ukraine’s request for security guarantees. The discussion apparently considered different views on what a security guarantee would actually look like: would it, for example, include troops and if so, how many, where would they be based in Ukraine and what role would they perform? Stories are around that some countries, the British and French in one version, the British, Germans and Poles in another (unlikely option), would actually put boots on the ground in Ukraine, although British sources insist that its troops would not be on the front line but “far back” from the action. . . .
Russia’s reaction came quickly and rejected foreign participation in security guarantees for Ukraine. Speaking about the possibility of foreign troops being deployed on Ukrainian territory, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow has always viewed this as unacceptable. “And I hope they understand that this would be absolutely unacceptable for Russia and for all sensible political forces in Europe,” Lavrov said.” He went on to say that such proposals are a “road to nowhere.”
Apparently, none of Trump’s advisors had reviewed the proposed security guarantees that Russia presented during the Istanbul negotiations in March 2022 between Russia and Ukraine. The Istanbul Communiqué, which was a draft agreement, provided a framework for a potential treaty aimed at ending the Russian Special Military Operation. The proposed security guarantees, as outlined in various sources, were a central component of Russia’s demands and the broader negotiations. Below is a detailed summary of the security guarantees Russia proposed:
Key Russian Proposals on Security Guarantees (March 2022, Istanbul Communiqué)
1. Ukraine’s Permanent Neutrality and NATO Exclusion:
Russia insisted that Ukraine enshrine permanent neutrality in its constitution, explicitly renouncing any plans to join NATO or host foreign military forces on its territory. This was a core demand, reflecting Russia’s long-standing grievance that NATO’s eastward expansion threatened its security.
In exchange, Russia, along with other countries (including Western powers like the United States, UK, France, and potentially China), would act as guarantor states, committing to defend Ukraine militarily if it were attacked in the future
2. Security Guarantees with Veto Power:
A critical condition proposed by Russia was that any activation of security guarantees (i.e., military assistance to Ukraine in case of an attack) would require unanimous consent from all guarantor states, including Russia itself. This effectively gave Russia a veto over any intervention, rendering the guarantees potentially ineffective from Ukraine’s perspective.
This provision echoed the structure of the Minsk II Accords, where Russia was treated as a neutral party rather than a belligerent, allowing it to block actions against itself.[](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/fact-sheet-istanbul-protocol-draft-document-april-15-2022)
3. Limits on Ukraine’s Military:
Russia demanded significant restrictions on the size and capability of Ukraine’s armed forces, including caps on personnel, equipment, and military exercises. The exact limits were a point of contention, with disagreements over how small Ukraine’s military could be while still maintaining defensive capacity.
Ukraine would be prohibited from conducting military exercises with foreign partners in its territory, airspace, territorial waters, or exclusive economic zone without the consent of guarantor states, including Russia and China.
4. Territorial and Legal Concessions:
Russia sought de jure recognition of its control over Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian-held parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. The status of Crimea was proposed to be negotiated over a 10- or 15-year consultation period, during which Ukraine would pledge not to attempt retaking it by force.
Russia also demanded that Ukraine amend its constitution to make Russian an official state language on par with Ukrainian and repeal decommunization laws and sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014. Additionally, Ukraine was to withdraw criminal cases against Russia at the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
5. Role of Guarantor States:
The proposed guarantors included permanent UN Security Council members (Russia, US, UK, France, China), potentially granting Russia and China veto power over any response to future aggression via the UNSC framework. This structure was designed to limit Western military support to Ukraine in future conflicts.
This was Russia’s demand in 2022, and I doubt that they have reversed themselves. If Donald Trump and his team want to secure a peace agreement the ends the Special Military Operation, then they should take the time to fully immerse themselves in the Russian position and not waste time in entertaining the possibility of NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine. Russia will not allow that.
Garland Nixon and I had our weekly chat on Thursday afternoon. I am also posting my Wednesday conversation with Andy Millette