U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to “robust” security guarantees, including “effectively” offering Ukraine Article Five-like protection, during their historic Friday meeting.
“We agreed to robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing,” Witkoff said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Witkoff explained that Russia agreed to allow the United States and other European countries to “effectively offer [Ukraine] Article Five-like language to cover a security guarantee,” referring to the provision of NATO that states an attack on one NATO member is seen as an attack on all members.
Russia has long opposed Ukraine’s admission to NATO, Witkoff noted, saying a key reason Ukraine has sought membership is for that protection.
“Everything is going to be about what the Ukrainians can live with, but assuming they could, we were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article Five-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” Witkoff said.
“We sort of were able to bypass that and get an agreement that the United States could offer Article Five protection, which was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that,” he continued.
Witkoff said other agreements included “legislative enshrinement within the Russian Federation not to go after any other territory when the peace deal is codified,” as well as “legislative enshrinement in the Russian Federation not to go after any other European countries and violate their sovereignty.”
Witkoff said any deal is subject to Ukrainian agreement and said land swaps is the “fundamental issue” at stake that could not be discussed in detail without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Witkoff said Trump, Zelensky and other European leaders plan to discuss the issues further at the White House meeting on Monday.
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