For Putin, 'Security Guarantees' on Ukraine Mean Something Different

Newsweek

9 hours ago

Based on factual reporting, incorporates the expertise of the journalist and may offer interpretations and conclusions.
Russia, Ukraine and European powers have all emerged from meetings with President Donald Trump in support of establishing security guarantees as part of a broader agreement to put an end to the bloody war between Moscow and Kyiv.
Trump vowed to commit to Ukraine's postwar defense during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Monday, a move welcomed by his visitors. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had also agreed to accept guarantees on Ukraine during their meeting in Alaska on Friday in what the U.S. leader described as a "very significant step."
What such guarantees look like, however, remains a core sticking point among the parties to the conflict, and efforts to find a common definition may be crucial to achieving a breakthrough.
"The key issue with security guarantees lies in the differing understandings of their modalities," Alexander Chekov, lecturer at Moscow State Institute of International Relations' Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of Russia, told Newsweek.
On one hand, Chekov said that "Ukraine and Western European countries view these guarantees as Western security commitments to Ukraine, supported by a range of measures such as arms sales and military assistance to the Ukrainian army, increased military-technical cooperation, and potentially even the stationing of some European troops in Ukraine."
"Russia, however, interprets security guarantees differently: not as unilateral Western commitments to Ukraine, but as a multilateral system of commitments that includes not only the West but also Russia itself and probably some major non-Euro-Atlantic powers," Chekov said.
As such, he argued that "one of the determining factors for the success of future negotiations will be the ability to reconcile the Western perspective on guarantees with the Russian one."
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a joint news conference with U.S. President Donald Trump (out of frame) after participating in a U.S.-Russia summit on Ukraine at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August...
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a joint news conference with U.S. President Donald Trump (out of frame) after participating in a U.S.-Russia summit on Ukraine at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. More
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images
The 'Root Causes'
Since the beginning of the conflict, launched full-scale by Russia in February 2022 after eight years of aiding allied separatists in eastern Ukraine and occupying Crimea, Putin has argued that the "root causes" for the war would need to be addressed in any settlement.
Such language is key to the Russian narrative surrounding the conflict, portrayed not as a "war of aggression" as it is often styled in the West, but as a "special military operation" dedicated to safeguarding Russian-speaking minorities and, perhaps most importantly, blocking further NATO expansion near Russia's borders.
Even prior to Putin coming to power at the dawn of the 21st century, Moscow, having green-lit the newly unified Germany's admission into NATO, opposed further states within the former Soviet sphere, such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which joined the alliance in 1999.
Six more rounds of expansion would follow, bringing the bloc to its current strength of 32 nations, including all of Russia's Eastern European neighbors with the exceptions of Belarus and Ukraine.
Many entered for fear of a resurgent Russia looking to reassert its influence on the continent. Moscow has broadcast an opposing view—that it was NATO threatening Russian security.
And Kyiv's ambitions to join the bloc, which predate the 2014 revolution that brought to power a pro-West government and set the conditions for the current crisis, have long drawn particular scorn from the Kremlin.
Joshua Shifrinson, associate professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, cited a cable sent in 2008 by then-U.S. ambassador to Russia Bill Burns (later President Joe Biden's CIA chief) to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warning that "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin)."
"And it's not hard to understand why," Shifrinson told Newsweek. "No country wants a military alliance on its borders and that it doesn't have a handle on. We have to remember Ukraine has been historically important, and even empirically, just as a reality, important to the Russian economy, important to Russian national security."
"We have to remember, too, that NATO was founded as an anti-Soviet Alliance. Large parts of it seen coming up to the Russian border is highly concerning," he added. "You don't need to believe in Russian imperial ambitions to say to one's self that, 'Look, the possibility of NATO including Ukraine could be highly detrimental to Russian security.'"
After Moscow first began preparing for war in 2021 with a military buildup surrounding Ukraine on the pretext of conducting training exercises, Russia issued demands to the U.S. and NATO for "security guarantees" that would include the bloc pull back its post-Cold War presence in Eastern Europe.
The conditions were dismissed after brief talks early the following year, with then-President Joe Biden's administration releasing intelligence concluding that Putin was on the precipice of ordering a large-scale invasion.
Three and a half years later, Russian and Ukrainian forces remain locked in the deadliest combat the continent has seen since World War II. Meanwhile, NATO has only further expanded, counting Finland and Sweden as members in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and European states are undergoing a historic rearmament plan.
A New Order for Europe
While much focus has centered on the amount of territory seized by Russia—nearly a fifth of Ukraine—Chekov pointed out that the issue of land, along with economic measures, would need to be addressed as part of a broader agreement that also included security guarantees.
"From the meeting in Alaska and the subsequent conference in Washington, we observed the institutionalization of several venues for negotiations on the Ukraine crisis," Chekov said.
"These include security guarantees, territorial issues, and relief of Western sanctions imposed on Russia," he added. "All these topics are interdependent, and a final resolution of the Ukrainian crisis seems most promising if they are addressed together."
Artem Kvartalnov, a former research fellow at the Russian Center for Policy Research now at the University of Texas at Austin, outlined what Moscow may desire in terms of reshaping the European security architecture in a way that neutralizes NATO entry into future conflicts, thus achieving Putin's long-held vision.
"The key issue with a potential exchange involving security guarantees, as seen by many on both sides, is that Russia likely wants a multilateral arrangement in which Russia itself would have a say before any external guarantees could be triggered," Kvartalnov told Newsweek.
"If there is a council of guarantors involving Russia itself that must authorize any use of force in response to external aggression against Ukraine, Russia will be able to block such authorizations, defeating the purpose of security guarantees," he added.
Shifrinson echoed this view on Russia's aims, while noting that Europe would continue to seek a lasting U.S. role not just in this conflict but across the continent at a time when the Trump administration was increasingly pushing to shift the burden to allies.
"Russia wants the ability to prevent Western intervention the future," he said. "So, if it's party part of the security guarantee, it can block a response, in some way, to a crisis in the future should a crisis occur."
"I mean, look, the Europeans don't want to have to fight Russia for the future of Ukraine," he added, "but they are desperate, I think, to keep the U.S. involved in European security affairs."
Moscow's position on the issue was voiced in a Telegram post Monday by Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov.
"Many EU leaders emphasize that the future peace agreement should provide reliable security guarantees for Ukraine," Ulyanov wrote. "Russia agrees with this. But it has every right to expect that Moscow will also receive effective security guarantees."
(Left to right) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks as French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President Donald Trump listen during a meeting with European leaders in the East Room of the White House in Washington,...
(Left to right) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks as French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President Donald Trump listen during a meeting with European leaders in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on August 18, 2025. More
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images
The Trump Factor
Between Russia's calls for a greater say on European security and U.S. allies demanding strict commitments enshrining Ukraine's defense lies Trump, who has issued both praise and criticism for both sides of the conflict.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his belief that Putin was sincere in engaging in talks to end the war, following a period of heated rhetoric toward the Russian leader. Trump's latest meeting with Zelensky was also far more amicable than the explosive episode that erupted in the White House during their previous meeting in February.
But there are key areas where Trump, who has positioned himself as the primary power broker in the peace talks, has broken with Kyiv and European allies, namely in eschewing efforts to seek a ceasefire prior to a final settlement, reiterating the necessity of "land swaps" as part of a deal and emphasizing Ukraine would not join NATO.
As such, Trump's definition of security guarantees also appears to differ from those expressed by the European leaders who recently departed Washington, D.C.
"There is a kind of underlying tension that has yet to be resolved, and that is, Trump has said no to NATO enlargement, no membership for Ukraine, and this is an administration that has a history of looking with skepticism at aid to Ukraine," Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relation and professor at Georgetown University, told Newsweek.
"The vice president goes around saying, 'We're done, we're not sending any more arms to Ukraine,' and the idea that, somehow, we're going to give them a security guarantee that would obligate us to defend them, it doesn't really add up," he added. "And so, there are some internal contradictions here that have to be worked out."
Also significant is the backlash Trump has received for considering security guarantees for Ukraine from influential voices in his "Make America Great Again" support base, many of whom have sought to push the president toward extracting the U.S. from the conflict.
Trump on Tuesday clarified his stance, offering his "assurance" during an interview with Fox & Friends that any guarantees would not include the deployment of U.S. troops to Ukraine. He also revealed, however, that European allies may be willing to send soldiers and that the U.S. is "willing to help them with things," including air support.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated this stance during a press briefing that same day.
"The president has definitively stated U.S. boots will not be on the ground in Ukraine, but we can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies," Leavitt said.
"The president understands security guarantees are crucially important to ensure a lasting peace," she added, "and he has directed his national security team to coordinate with our friends in Europe and also to continue to cooperate and discuss these matters with Ukraine and Russia as well."
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics (second from right) tours near the construction of a fence, concrete and armored barriers that are being erected to fortify and secure the border with Russia and Belarus in Zaborje, Latvia....
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics (second from right) tours near the construction of a fence, concrete and armored barriers that are being erected to fortify and secure the border with Russia and Belarus in Zaborje, Latvia. More
Alexander Welscher/Picture-Alliance/DPA/AP
The Limits of Guarantees
But some experts have cast doubt as to the extent to which even a "coalition of the willing" among European powers may truly be willing to commit to such a task.
As Franz-Stefan Gady, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, recently told Newsweek, "the hardest question that remains unanswered for Europe" boils down to "what does Ukraine really mean for Europe's security architecture, and what is Europe prepared to risk to ensure that Ukraine will remain an independent, pro-Western country?"
"Are European countries prepared to go to war against Russia? If the answer is no, then any sort of European reassurance force in Ukraine, integrated with Ukrainian forces, will not be able to deter future Russian aggression," he said at the time.
Kupchan also raised questions regarding the concept of a future European deployment to Ukraine, asking, "How much of a guarantee are these guarantees?" He wondered whether or not the U.S. and European allies would actually go to the lengths of ratifying defense treaties for Ukraine as they have with NATO's Article 5.
"If the answer to that is no, and these agreements do not have parliamentary ratification, they may be Article 5-like, but the operative word there is 'like' in the sense that you might want to think about them more as assurances than guarantees," he said.
And even if a deal were to manifest to end the war in Ukraine, he felt Europe was likely to remain "a divided continent" for some time to come, and that any progress in improving the tense security environment that exists between NATO and Russia would be incremental at best.
"I could imagine, if this war comes to an end, some level of economic reintegration, some lowering of the sanctions, some progress on getting arms control, both nuclear and conventional, back up and running," Kupchan said, "but I think that the overall relationship will be highly distrustful, and you're going to see NATO on guard along its eastern flank for the foreseeable future."
"Might there be a reallocation of U.S. military assets? Yes, especially if the war comes to an end, I think you'll definitely see a drawdown of the U.S. presence in Europe, not a departure, but a drawdown," he added. "But other than that, I think that if there is a sort of broader repair in the relationship between NATO and Russia, it will be glacial."