US and European officials are to begin working immediately on providing reliable security guarantees for Ukraine to pave the way for a landmark meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

US and European officials are to begin working immediately on providing reliable security guarantees for Ukraine to pave the way for a landmark meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Source: European Pravda; Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter

Details: The sources, who spoke about the private discussions on condition of anonymity, said the guarantees will focus on strengthening Ukraine’s armed forces and capabilities, without any restrictions such as limiting the size of the Ukrainian armed forces.

The aim is to prevent Russia from demanding restrictions on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces as part of a future agreement to end the war.

Bloomberg said the White House summit between US President Donald Trump, Zelenskyy and several European leaders on 18 August had yielded more explicit commitments from the US administration to help guarantee Ukraine’s security.

Bloomberg believes these talks “allayed concerns in Kyiv and Europe for now that the US leader had tacked towards Moscow after talks with Putin in Alaska”.

“During the meeting we discussed Security Guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European Countries, [in] coordination with the United States of America,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

EU leaders are to be briefed remotely on Tuesday on the outcome of the talks in Washington.

Bloombergʼs sources reported that the security guarantee package will also be based on the work of the Coalition of the Willing and is expected to include multinational forces in the future. They said the format of such forces has yet to be determined.

Leaders showed broad support for “Article 5-like” guarantees, first proposed by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at a meeting on 18 August, but warned that officials must first work out the exact details and determine the role of the United States.

Background:

US President Donald Trump and European leaders have reportedly agreed that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will head a working group of national security advisers and NATO representatives to draft security guarantees for Ukraine.French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer consider the US’s readiness to work on security guarantees for Ukraine to be the most significant outcome of the White House talks.

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