Ukraine to start talks with US on security guarantees –senior official

Ukraine is to start consultations with the United States this week on providing security guarantees for Kyiv pending the completion of the process of joining NATO, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said on Sunday.

Andriy Yermak, writing on the Telegram messaging app, also said officials from a number of countries were preparing to meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss Zelenskiy’s peace plan for Ukraine, based on the departure of all Russian troops.

Yermak did not say when the next meeting would take place but said the plan would be discussed in three phases, leading up to a meeting of heads of state and government.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the meeting in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, saying it would be held in Jeddah on August 5-6.

The talks on security guarantees with the United States are a follow-up on pledges issued by the Group of 7 (G7) at the NATO summit in Lithuania earlier this month to draw up and honor security guarantees.

“We are starting talks with the United States (this) week,” Yermak wrote on Telegram.

“Security guarantees for Ukraine will be concrete, long-term obligations ensuring Ukraine’s capacity to defeat and restrain Russian aggression in the future. These will be clearly drafted formats and mechanisms of support.”

He said the guarantees “will be in effect until Ukraine secures NATO membership.”

The Western Alliance’s Vilnius summit offered support to Ukraine in countering Russia’s 17-month-old invasion and individual countries pledged new weapons, but no date for Ukrainian membership was set as long as the war continues.

Members of the G7 agreed for each nation to negotiate agreements to provide security guarantees and help Ukraine bolster its military.

In his comments, Yermak said more than 10 other countries had joined the G7 declaration and Ukraine was negotiating terms of future guarantees with each of them.

Yermak spoke of the forthcoming meeting in Saudi Arabia at a gathering of regional officials in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano Frankivsk.

He said an initial international meeting devoted to the peace plan took place in Copenhagen in June.

In addition to calling for a withdrawal of Russian troops, Zelenskiy’s peace plan also provides for the restoration of Ukraine’s pre-war borders and the return home of all prisoners and deported children.

Russia and Ukraine held a series of peace talks soon after Russia’s invasion in February 2022, but these failed to produce any agreement.

Ukraine, its military now bolstered by Western arms, now says it will not take part in any further talks until Russian troops leave. — Reuters