Ukraine's proposal for a specialised security guarantees system for the country as part of talks to end the war has taken Western officials by surprise, according to a new report in the Financial Times.
It was the British newspaper that had revealed Ukraine's claim for multilateral security guarantees as part of a 15-point peace draft reportedly being discussed by Kiev and Moscow.
The Ukrainian side reportedly wants the five permanent members of the Security Council, including Russia, as well as Germany and Turkey as guarantors.
The British newspaper stresses that such a guarantee treaty under the Ukrainian demand would include something similar to NATO's Article 5, i.e. a commitment to send troops to defend Ukraine in the event of a future threat to its territorial integrity. This means that if such guarantees were in place before the Russian invasion, Western powers, China and Turkey would have to intervene militarily.
The Financial Times writes that Western officials question how such a guarantee model would work and how it could be agreed between Ukraine and Russia without prior commitments from the potential guarantor powers.
A senior US defense official has said the US is not involved in the negotiations. A senior European diplomat comments, speaking to the FT, that he does not have a clear picture of the logic of such an agreement. "The point of arrival is impossible. I mean it is possible, but I don't understand why the Russians have been involved in this whole war so far if that is what they want," the same European diplomat added.
Another Western official says that the terms of the guarantees are a matter of discussion with international partners, but until they are finalized it is very difficult to say yes or no as to implementation and participating countries.
Asked by UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace whether his country could take on the role of a guarantor force in Ukraine, he replied that it is necessary to discuss the details of an agreement, not just the phraseology.
The FT report also notes that the Ukrainians have ruled out Kremlin spokesman Peskov's proposal for a different model of security guarantees along the lines of Austria's neutrality, as they see military commitments as a crucial part of any agreement.
The importance the Ukrainians attach to the military aspect of a security model is highlighted by Austrian analyst Marcus Hove of risk consultancy VE Insight.
He believes that the negotiations are nothing more than a "smokescreen". This view is echoed by another Western security intelligence official who notes that since Soviet times the Russians have viewed negotiation not as a way to end war, but as part of it. "Talks are just a way of controlling the pace (of the war) to suit Russia's needs," he says."
In the same vein, Gustav Gressel of the European Council on International Relations in Berlin believes that negotiations are nothing but a tactic of the Russians who usually use them to sow discord on the other side and buy time.
"I have always been very cautious when the Russians negotiate. We saw it repeatedly in Syria. The West or the Turks went in with high hopes that the Russians were ready to change their position and de-escalate, and it always turned out that this was not the case. It never takes long until they break things up and then they just resume their maximalist demands," the German analyst adds.
It should be noted that earlier in the week British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss had expressed fear that the Ukraine negotiations are nothing more than a "game of deception" by Putin.
Source: Cyprus Times
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