Ambassador to Nato says Ukrainians view protections against a future Russian invasion as integral to any peace settlement

Volodymyr Zelensky met with Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos – his ambassador to Nato says the country is wary of any discussion on security guarantees Credit: AFP

Joe Barnes Brussels Correspondent

27 January 2026

Ukraine will not accept “meaningless” security guarantees from the West, a top Ukrainian official has said.

In an article for The Telegraph, below, Alyona Getmanchuk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Nato, said Ukrainian people viewed protections against a future Russian invasion as an “integral part” of any wider peace settlement.

Her comments came as Donald Trump’s peace envoys changed course on a plan to conclude a deal on post-war US security guarantees before a wider peace agreement was reached between Ukraine and Russia.

Ukrainian officials had hoped to finalise the agreement on a security backstop to deter future Russian attacks to bolster their position in eventual ceasefire talks with Moscow.

The new sequencing being demanded by Washington effectively means Kyiv must agree to a peace deal that could cede the eastern Donbas regions at the same time as any security pact.

It will come as a huge blow to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, who has warned that any painful concessions thrust upon his electorate must be backed up by robust security guarantees.

“Ukrainians have no illusions that any potential break in the war in the form of a ceasefire with [Vladimir] Putin would ultimately lead to peace rather than a new round of aggression,” Ms Getmanchuk wrote.

“That’s why this time – unlike in 2015, when the Minsk deal on Donbas was reached and Normandy format talks were launched – security guarantees are still seen by Ukrainians as an integral part for any peace settlement, not the result of it.”

Alyona Getmanchuk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Nato, says peace talks with Russia do not necessarily lead to peace

Ukraine signed both the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, handing over its nuclear arsenal to Russia, and the Minsk Agreement in 2014 after Moscow annexed Crimea, in exchange for security guarantees.

Despite the provisions in the internationally recognised treaties, Putin still mounted his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Unsurprisingly, after all of these experiences, Ukrainians have become extremely wary of any discussion on security guarantees. They are not going to accept another meaningless offer, no matter how nicely it is packaged under the label ‘security guarantees’,” Ms Getmanchuk added.

Mr Zelensky and his negotiating team have secured what they believe to be promises of an American-European deal that would mirror Nato’s Article 5 mutual defence clause.

The security guarantees on the table foresee the deployment of troops from the coalition of the willing, led by Britain and France, to help rebuild Ukraine’s army and police the skies and seas.

The Telegraph also understands that European plans are being finalised for a response force, which could react with lethal force should Russia break the terms of any ceasefire.

This would call upon European units and equipment stationed inside and outside Ukraine and Kyiv’s armed forces.

Sources have indicated that discussions are still ongoing over what Moscow would need to do to trigger a response.

The idea is that Ukraine would act in the first instance, with the European units following behind if necessary, and finally, any force would be supported by an American backstop.

The Ukrainian president had expected to put pen to paper on the deal at a meeting with Mr Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.

Mr Zelensky claimed the security documents were “100 per cent ready” to be signed despite his US counterpart not giving his final approval.

The American side instead decided it wanted to conclude the security pact as a framework deal to end the war, Ukrainian and European officials said.

The apparent volte-face was first reported by the Financial Times.

Russia has been attempting talks over the wider peace deal to force Ukraine to cede its eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as the price of a ceasefire.

Mr Zelensky has warned that Kyiv’s constitution blocks him from surrendering land and has instead sought to push for a demilitarised “free economic zone”, as long as Russia also agrees to withdraw its forces from the regions.

The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed it will not end the war until Ukraine withdraws unilaterally from the Donbas.

European officials fear the American refusal to complete the security guarantees could be used as leverage over Ukraine by either Washington or Moscow.

But Ukrainian sources told The Telegraph that they did not view it as an attempt to strong-arm Kyiv’s negotiators to cede land as a pre-condition for the protections.

Rather, it is seen as an American attempt to speed up the negotiating process after mediating the first direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Abu Dhabi last week.

Neither side was willing to break the deadlock on the issue of territorial concessions, which US officials believe is the only question left to answer.

Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s peace envoy, told a Davos event last week: “I think we’ve got it down to one issue and we have discussed iterations of that issue, and that means it’s solvable.”

Mr Zelensky later confirmed that the outstanding issue was territory.

On Monday, the Ukrainian president confirmed he would dispatch officials to Abu Dhabi for a second round of talks with their Russian officials this weekend.

“The parties primarily discussed military issues, but they also talked about security guarantees,” he told Christian Stocker, the Austrian chancellor, during a phone call on Tuesday.

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Peace talks with Russia do not necessarily lead to peace

By Alyona Getmanchuk

The entire history of independent Ukraine is a collection of Russian attempts to subjugate the country in all possible ways and forms: hybrid attacks, sabotage, interference in election processes, political bribery, propaganda, and, finally, military aggression.

Russia decided to launch a military invasion as a last resort, when it realised that it was the only option left to destroy Ukraine as a nation and incorporate it into a new edition of the Russian empire.

Ukrainians have no illusions that any potential break in the war in the form of a ceasefire with Putin would ultimately lead to peace rather than a new round of aggression. More precisely, almost 87 per cent of Ukrainians believe that Putin would attack Ukraine again.

That’s why this time – unlike in 2015, when the Minsk deal on Donbas was reached and Normandy format talks were launched – security guarantees are still seen by Ukrainians as an integral part of any peace settlement, not the result of it.

This is not the first time Ukraine has sought credible security guarantees from the West, but for the first time, Ukraine is doing so knowing exactly what kind of security guarantees it would like to have, given current political constraints and Ukraine’s painful past experiences.

Dealing with the issue of security guarantees for decades, I have counted at least five attempts to secure bilateral guarantees with the US under different administrations.

All previous agreements were calibrated in a way that the Americans even declined to use the term “security guarantees”, framing them instead as “security assurances” or, at best, “security commitments”, thereby avoiding any binding obligations.

Even Ukraine’s first experience with security guarantees, infamously known as the Budapest Memorandum, revealed a linguistic confusion – in the Ukrainian (as well as Russian) versions of the document, the wording “security guarantees” appears, but in the English version it is “security assurances”.

This confusion led Ukrainians for many years to believe that they had security guarantees from the US, as well as from the UK, France, Russia, and China.

They were deeply surprised in 2014, when Russia attacked Ukraine for the first time, to discover that there were no actual security guarantees included in the Budapest nuclear deal and to hear that the security assurances envisaged by the memorandum were not legally binding, but merely a political commitment to hold consultations in the event of an attack – not a legal obligation to provide even military support to Ukraine, let alone defending it.

On its long and exhausting path to obtaining credible security guarantees, Ukraine has signed a number of bilateral security agreements with the US and other countries.

There were numerous attempts to launch a genuine accession process with the ultimate goal of becoming a Nato member. But we were assured by many partners that as long as Ukraine was not part of Nato, Russia would never start a war.

The opposite proved true – Russia first dared to attack Ukraine militarily exactly after Ukraine adopted legislation on non-bloc status, officially becoming a neutral state.

On top of that, Ukrainians were deeply traumatised by the Minsk process, in which almost 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia – including around 20 ceasefires broken by Russia – occurred without any clear commitment on security guarantees.

Ultimately, this process gave Russia the opportunity and the time to prepare for the large-scale war it launched after seven years of pretending to participate in the negotiation process.

This experience taught us that peace talks with Russia do not necessarily lead to peace. Moreover, if talks are not supported by sufficient pressure and clear security guarantees, they will almost certainly result in a more brutal Russian attack.

Unsurprisingly, after all of these experiences, Ukrainians have become extremely wary of any discussion on security guarantees. They are not going to accept another meaningless offer, no matter how nicely it is packaged under the label “security guarantees”.

At the same time, it is important to emphasise that Ukrainians are not asking for much. They are not demanding Nato membership – though the idea still has widespread support among Ukrainians – nor do they expect Nato member states to replace the Ukrainian armed forces.

On the contrary, there is broad consensus in Ukraine that the Ukrainian army and defence industries should remain the central element of security guarantees. There is a clear understanding that the Ukrainian military does and will continue to serve as the first line of defence.

In short, we can speak of a significant shift in Ukraine’s thinking about security guarantees since the large-scale invasion began. This shift is the result of past disappointments, the disillusionment that Ukraine would join Nato soon, uncertainties about the future of collective defence and transatlantic commitments, but also… increased confidence in Ukraine’s own ability to counter an aggressive Russia if there is proper support for our armed forces and defence industries.

So this time – unlike previous occasions – when we discuss security guarantees, we are in fact discussing not just how Ukraine can obtain them, but how we can jointly, with our major partners, shape a security-guaranteed infrastructure for Ukraine.

This infrastructure will include strengthening the Ukrainian army, scaling up Ukraine’s defence production, legally binding bilateral security agreements, and a multinational, multi-domain military presence of the coalition of the willing countries and Ukraine’s membership in the EU.

Finally, the security guarantees infrastructure for Ukraine is something Europe needs no less than Ukraine itself. For European countries, especially those forming the core of the coalition of the willing, it represents the real opportunity to demonstrate that Europe is definitely ready to take responsibility for its own security.

Alyona Getmanchuk is Ukraine’s ambassador to Nato

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/01/27/ukraine-russia-security-guarantees-trump-nato/