Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that during talks with Ukraine on a potential peace deal, US officials vowed that the US would be willing to take military action against Russia if it violates a future ceasefire, a commitment that would risk nuclear war.
“For the first time I heard from the mouths of American negotiators that America will be involved in security guarantees for Ukraine in such a way that the Russians would have no doubt that (in the event of a ceasefire violation) the American response will be military if the Russians attacked Ukraine again,” Tusk said as he was leaving Germany, according to the Anadolu Agency.
Tusk’s comments came after US, European, and Ukrainian officials held talks in Berlin, and US officials said that Washington was offering Ukraine a “NATO Article 5-style security guarantee,” referring to the part of the alliance’s treaty that declares an attack on one member is an “attack against them all.”
Russia would almost certainly reject such an arrangement, and the US’s willingness to provide such a guarantee makes a peace deal very unlikely. “What is a breakthrough – by no means a guarantee of success – is the fact that perhaps for the first time it was so clearly visible that Americans, Europeans, and Ukraine are on the same side,” Tusk said.
Following the talks in Berlin, European leaders released a joint statement that said they agreed on security guarantees for Ukraine that would involve the deployment of a European-led “multi-national force” to Ukrainian territory, another red line for Russia. The statement said that the force would be “supported by the US,” and President Trump has previously said he’s open to providing air support for such a force.
Moscow has repeatedly stated that it would never accept the deployment of a force consisting of troops from NATO countries in Ukraine, which it reiterated on Tuesday. “We definitely will not at any time subscribe to, agree to, or even be content with, any presence of NATO troops on Ukrainian territory,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov.
The European statement also said the guarantees would include a “legally binding commitment, subject to national procedures, to take measures to restore peace and security in the case of a future armed attack. These measures may include armed force, intelligence and logistical assistance, economic and diplomatic actions.”
Despite the significant offer from the US regarding security guarantees, Ukraine is still rejecting the idea of ceding what territory it still controls in the Donbas, a key Russian demand.
