Trump’s ‘NATO-style’ security deal offered to Ukraine amounts to less than a guarantee: experts

WASHINGTON — The US has proposed a decade-long security guarantee for Ukraine billed as “NATO-style” — but actually falls far short of promising an Article 5-like response, multiple national security analysts told The Post on Friday.

Under the plan, a “significant, deliberate and sustained” Russian strike on Ukrainian territory would be “regarded as an attack threatening the peace and security of the transatlantic community” for the next 10 years — but it does not commit the US to providing a military response to such aggression.

While NATO’s Article 5 triggers an obligation for each member to come to an attacked party’s assistance in responding to an attack — militarily, economically or otherwise — the floated “guarantee” stops short of committing the US to taking any action.

Instead, it affirms that the US president will “determine the measures necessary to restore security,” which could include military force, intelligence support, economic pressure or other actions — after consultations with Kyiv, NATO and European allies. But it could also be nothing at all.

That’s where the proposed plan loses teeth. Essentially, the plan guarantees that the US president will consider intervening — not that Washington will push back on Russia if it tries to re-up its war.

In that way, the plan is similar to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum — in which Kyiv gave up its nuclear arsenal for Russia’s pledge not to invade Ukraine and the US guarantee it would intervene should Moscow violate it, Institute for the Study of War Russia program lead George Barros told The Post.

“Any security guarantee that doesn’t obligate a military response to Ukraine is likely to fail,” he said. “Ukraine had such security assurances under the Budapest Memorandum, which Russia violated, and which the US as one of the guarantors, did little in response.”

Even if the president does choose to act, it does not mean that an intervention would include military action.

“Successive American presidents of both parties have made clear they will not fight Russia over Ukraine,” Foundation for Defending Democracy’s Russia program director John Hardie told The Post. “So under the proposed arrangement, Kyiv would basically be left with a promise to reimpose sanctions and provide arms and intelligence.

“That’s not nothing, but it does underscore why Ukraine must maintain a sizable, capable military under any deal — and why Washington and its allies must invest in making post-war Ukraine a ‘steel porcupine,’” he added.

What’s more, the proposal comes alongside a potential peace deal that, in part, explicitly states no NATO or other foreign forces would be stationed in Ukraine.

“One of the ways in which this is not like NATO is that the plan states that Ukraine may host no foreign NATO forces,” Barros said. “It’s unclear how exactly is compatible with ‘Article 5-style’ guarantees.”

The vague guarantee is one of the only proverbial carrots included in a 28-point proposed peace plan devised by Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff after consultations with both Ukrainian and Russian officials.

That agreement, which would see Kyiv surrendering the entirety of its Donbas region, pledge to never join NATO, shrink its armed forces from its current estimated 2.1 million to just 600,000 personnel — and grant amnesty for all parties involved in wartime actions, eliminating any future legal claims over Russian war crimes.

It’s a plan to end the war in Ukraine with almost no concessions from Russia — aside from it abandoning its dream to take over the entire country — and even senior American officials have told The Post they are suspicious as to why Ukrainian Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov gave “positive feedback” that Kyiv may accept the proposal.

“The plan was drawn up immediately following discussions with one of the most senior members of Zelensky’s administration, Umerov,” one of the officials said. “So Umerov agreed to the majority of this plan, and he made several modifications to it, which we included and presented it to President Zelensky.”

While Umerov has denied the allegation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not explicitly condemned the arrangement as numerous attempts by The Post to get comment from Kyiv have been ignored.

On Friday, in a recorded address apparently responding to the US, Zelensky said Ukraine “may now face a very difficult choice, either losing its dignity or the risk of losing a key partner.”

A senior US official told The Post the main sticking point for Russian officials is merely to accept that it must not absorb the whole nation into its own — despite its inability to do so over nearly four years of incessant war.

“I mean, look, everyone knows Vladimir Putin wants to take the whole country,’’ the official said of the Russian dictator. “That’s his been his long-sought goal. That is something he’s made quite clear. The president is very aware of that.

“This plan obviously stops [Putin] in his tracks, ends the war — and also forces him to relinquish some territory, which you know is a huge loss for him and for Russia,” the source said.

“And there’s some other little details in there as well that are concessions from their side too, but yeah, sort of the overall point.”

Meanwhile, the conflict is costing Moscow roughly 7,000 Russian lives a day as its economy hemorrhages — so ending its war would in large part benefit the Kremlin to begin with.