The coalition of the willing plan to rely on sending “reassurance forces” to Ukraine and buy Kyiv $100bn worth of new US weapons in lieu of giving Kyiv real collective security guarantees will doom imminent Russo-Ukraine peace negotiations to failure before they start.

During a summit hosted by US President Donald Trump in Washington on August 18, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told the table of assembled European leaders that what was needed is “Nato Article 5-like” security guarantees for Ukraine – a collective security agreement that would commit Kyiv’s partners to military boots on the ground in Ukraine if Russia re-launches an attack after a ceasefire has been put in place.

Zelenskiy too has introduced the idea of an “ironclad” security deal from Russia as part of any settlement, something that Putin said during the Alaska summit on August 15 that he is open to.

But a true security deal from Europe is not going to happen. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pushing Nato for accelerated membership since the start of the war over three years ago but has constantly been rebuffed.

The compromise would be to do bilateral security deals instead, something that the Kremlin has repeatedly indicated it would accept. Russia’s objection is tightly focused on Ukraine’s potential membership of Nato and the possibility of Nato missiles being stationed on Ukraine’s border with the European part of Russia where over 80% of its population lives.

During the 2022 Istanbul peace deal, Ukraine agreed to give up its Nato ambitions and instead reach out to its European and US partners to provide bilateral guarantees in a formula accepted by the Russian side. However, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson flew to Kyiv a few days later and said Europe would not provide any security deals and told Zelenskiy to “fight on.” The Istanbul peace deal promptly collapsed.

The Western allies have constantly shied away from providing Ukraine with Article 5-like guarantees. The closest they have come is to sign off on “security assurances” starting with Britain in January 2024, that commit to long-term promises of weapons and money, but do not commit any of Kyiv’s partners to military action in the response to renewed Russian aggression. Indeed, former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told journalists not to call his deal with Zelenskiy a “guarantee” but better an “assurance” to make this distinction crystal clear.

Peacekeepers

In the meantime, Ukraine’s western partners have searched for a fudge that would improve Ukraine’s security but avoid committing them to be drawn into direct conflict with Russia should a second campaign begin. The answer they came up with is peacekeepers, first suggested by French President Emmanuel Macron and later renamed “deterrence” or “reassurance” forces – the name keeps changing – that are supposed to monitor the line of contact if a ceasefire is declared.

Military experts say a force of at least 100,000 men would be necessary to effectively patrol a border of about 1,200km, but the most that France and Britain, the only two powers to commit to the idea of providing troops so far, can muster is between 10,000 and 30,000 men.

The Kremlin has strenuously and repeatedly said that it will not accept Nato-affiliated troops of any kind on Ukraine’s soil. Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova repeated those objections again over the weekend saying the Kremlin would not tolerate Nato-backed troops on Ukrainian soil, adding that such a force would be “fraught with unpredictable consequences.”

What would the rules of engagement be? Would French troops be allowed to fire on Russian troops if they strayed across the line of contact? the Germans have ruled out from the start participating in this scheme as the optics of German troops firing at Russian on Ukrainian soil would be a PR jamboree for the Kremlin’s “Ukraine is full of Nazis” PR line. Would Russia constitute a hot clash as a direct attack by Nato on Russia? What difference can such a small force kept in the rear make?

Because of all these problems the idea of peacekeepers was abandoned in March as unworkable, but now it appears it is being revived, for the lack of any alternative. At the most recent summit of the coalition of the willing in London, British Defence Minister John Healey revived the idea, and it appears to be top of the current agenda amongst the European leaders trying to find a “security guarantees” formula for Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump indirectly confirmed the talk of peacekeepers by saying that the US would not put any boots on the ground but would support any European effort to help Ukraine. Trump insisted European countries would be the “first line of defence” for Ukraine, but that didn’t mean they were on their own. “European nations are going to take a lot of the burden. We’re going to help them and we’re going to make it very secure,” he said, without giving any details of what the US would provide.

Talks ongoing

The talks are now underway. The next 15 days are “critical” to determine guarantees for Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said on August 19. Planning teams will meet with their US counterparts in the coming days to further strengthen plans to deliver “robust” security guarantees for Ukraine and prepare for the deployment of a reassurance force if the hostilities end. Zelenskiy and Putin are due to meet sometime in the next two weeks.

“During a break in the meeting, the American president spoke with the Russian president on the phone and agreed that there would be a meeting between the Russian president and the Ukrainian president within the next two weeks," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters following the White House summit on August 18.

The security deal for Ukraine is being developed at level of national security advisors, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha. Next week, EU defence and foreign ministers are set to discuss the deal for Ukraine and the intensification of sanctions against Russia.

It seems the chances of Ukraine getting real Article 5-like guarantees are very low. Trump has already explicitly and repeatedly ruled out any form of Nato membership for Ukraine.

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte emphasized that the issue of Ukraine's membership in the Alliance is not currently being considered, but the allies are discussing "security guarantees along the lines of Article 5."

While Trump has mentioned that the US will supply some sort of security guarantee for Ukraine, he has given no details and again it's highly unlikely that he will offer a real collective security deal to Ukraine at a time when he is already dithering over sticking the Article 5 obligation to existing members of Nato.

The European leaders are happily bandying about the phrase security guarantee, but everything they have said so far suggests strongly that they will refloat the idea of peacekeepers and once again shy away from a true collective security deal. The main thrust of the security guarentees is simply that Ukraine should build up its army as much as it can with EU help (and money) and provide its own security. 

According to Emmanuel Macron, Trump and European leaders have agreed on the need for a "powerful Ukrainian army capable of repelling any attempted attack," which will have "no restrictions on the number or type of weapons." 

If Europe proposes peacekeepers plus new arms supplies again then that is a deal-killer for the Kremlin which will likely refuse to even meet Zelenskiy. The irony is that according to what the Russian side has said so far, the Kremlin is prepared to deal with Ukraine if it has the military backing from the West in the form of a collective security guarantee that represents the risk of going to war with Nato. That also suggests, provided Putin’s root causes of the war concerns are addressed, it is prepared to end the conflict here. However, if it is faced with half measures that don’t satisfy either Putin or Zelenskiy, the Kremlin will be just as happy to fight on.