Security guarantees for Kyiv remain a central issue in efforts to end the fighting during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has brought into focus the term “like Article 5.”
On August 17, Witkoff told CNN that during the Alaska summit, an agreement was reached whereby the United States and its allies would provide “decisive” guarantees for Ukraine in the form of “Article 5–style defense,” though he offered no concrete details.
According to him, after the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia would not oppose such an arrangement as part of a possible peace framework.
The phrase refers to Article 5 of the founding treaty of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), its key clause stating that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all.
However, contrary to popular belief, the article does not automatically oblige NATO members to full military intervention. Instead, it stipulates that each member shall assist the attacked party “by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.”
Since NATO’s creation in 1949, Article 5 has been invoked only once—after the September 11 attacks—leading to operations and support measures by the alliance, though contributions varied across states in scale and timing.
A pact “almost like Article 5” would essentially extend the principle of collective defense outside NATO’s framework, without granting Ukraine membership—something Trump has explicitly ruled out.
What would this mean in practice?
A parallel system for Ukraine would depend entirely on the negotiated text. More than the label itself, the key questions are: Who commits? To what? And how quickly and forcefully would they act in the event of another attack on Ukraine?
This lack of clarity fuels skepticism.
Ukrainians remain wary after the vague assurances of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which offered “security guarantees” in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union.
Those guarantees did not prevent Russian aggression. Poland’s Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, stressed that Kyiv’s problem is not the absence of guarantees but the lack of respect for them.
“On April 22, 2004, Vladimir Putin solemnly ratified the Russia–Ukraine border agreement. Simply respecting that would end the war,” he wrote on X.
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the proposal, saying the EU is “ready to do its part.”
“As I have often said, Ukraine must become like a steel hedgehog, impossible for potential invaders to swallow,” she declared.
Geopolitically, the proposal raises a paradox. If the guarantees truly mirrored NATO’s deterrent effect, why would the Kremlin accept them?
One possible explanation is that Moscow views guarantees outside NATO’s framework as less automatic and binding than full alliance membership, or as more open to negotiation in scope and geography.
When asked by CNN whether Russia would accept “NATO Article 5–style guarantees,” Witkoff replied:
“What I said is that we reached an agreement that the U.S. and other European states could effectively offer a formulation like Article 5 for security guarantees.”
However, if these guarantees are diluted to make them acceptable to Russia, they risk failing to deter anyone—least of all Moscow.
