An arcane concept in the high-level meetings over Ukraine

An esoteric concept that came out of the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska was “Article 5-like guarantees.“ Article 5 of the NATO Treaty commits all members states to come to each others’ defense if they are attacked by another country.

That cryptic concept emerged from a claim by Trump’s Special Envoy to Everywhere Steve Witkoff that Putin would be willing to accept outside powers giving Ukraine “Article 5-like” security guarantees. (1)

Somehow, this would mean that while Russia would not accept NATO membership for Ukraine, they would accept Ukraine getting the mutual-defense commitment from NATO members. Or rather something “like” that.

I’m not going to give myself a headache trying to parse what that mystical concept may mean until it clearly becomes a serious talking point in negotiations with Russia.

This Deutsche Welle report takes a look at what may happen at the scheduled negotiations with European leaders on Monday. One of the commentators, Anchal Vohra, mentions something that we don’t hear enough in such reports, which is that the EU Treaty also has a mutual defense clause. Which raises the question of why Russia would be willing to accept EU membership of Ukraine but not NATO membership. (1)

In her explanation, Vohra mentions that the NATO commitment includes a clause about how that commitment would be consistent with each country’s own constitutional requirement. (Which if we want to take the US Constitution on its face would require a Congressional declaration of war for the US to play such a role, but let’s not go there right now.) She alludes to that in her comments.

And she says that some analysts argue that the EU Treaty’s self-defense clause actually is more binding in its wording than NATO’s. (To my non-expert eyes, it certainly reads that way.) But when we’re talking about commitments to go to war directly with Russia, it’s hard to imagine the EU countries would make so that without non-EU members Britain and the US supporting the action explicitly. In any case, Western military preparations for a possible war with Russia are currently based on a command structure dominated by the US.

Notes:

(1) ‘Sviunovskiy, Gregory (2025): Witkoff claims Trump-Putin meeting victory, says 'Article 5-like' security on the table for Ukraine. Politico 08/17/2025. <https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/17/witkoff-trump-putin-meeting-article-5-security-ukraine-00512890> (Accessed: 2025-17-08).

(2) Security guarantees for Ukraine: What could the US and the EU offer? DW News YouTube channel 08/17/2025. <https://youtu.be/puWXKNy4dKY?si=fxmOzrb_Ek5kd_f4> (Accessed: 2025-17-08).