Focus on security guarantees as Ukraine summit leaves path to peace unclear

Summary

• Zelenskiy hails summit with Trump as a step towards peace
• Russia launches largest attack this month amid peace talks
• Uncertainty over US security guarantees for Ukraine

Ukraine and its European allies have been buoyed by Donald Trump's promise of security guarantees for Kyiv to help end the war in Ukraine but face many unanswered questions, including how willing Russia will be to play ball.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed Monday's extraordinary summit at the White House with the US president as a "major step forward" towards ending Europe's deadliest conflict in 80 years and towards setting up a trilateral meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin and Trump in the coming weeks.

Zelenskiy was flanked by the leaders of allies including Germany, France and Britain at the summit and his warm rapport with Trump contrasted sharply with their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February.

But beyond the optics, the path to peace remains deeply uncertain and Zelenskiy may be forced to make painful compromises to end the war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 and which analysts say has killed or wounded more than 1 million people.

While the Washington talks allowed for a temporary sense of relief in Kyiv, there was no let-up in the fighting. Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles in an overnight attack on Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said, the largest this month. The energy ministry said Russia had targeted energy facilities in the central Poltava region, home to Ukraine's only oil refinery, causing big fires.

"The good news is that there was no blow-up (at the White House). Trump didn't demand Ukrainian capitulation nor cut off support. The mood music was positive and the trans-Atlantic alliance lives on," John Foreman, a former British defence attache to Kyiv and Moscow, told Reuters.

"On the downside, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the nature of security guarantees and what exactly the US has in mind."

Ukraine's allies were to hold talks in the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" format on Tuesday to discuss the way forward. NATO chiefs of defence will also discuss security guarantees for Ukraine on Tuesday, a source close to the matter said, without mentioning further details.

Zelenskiy said on Tuesday his officials were working on the content of the security guarantees.

Russia has made no explicit commitment to a meeting between Putin and Zelenskiy. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow did not reject any formats for discussing the peace process in Ukraine but any meeting of national leaders "must be prepared with utmost thoroughness".

"It doesn't smell like peace yet. I think Putin will not go for it, he is not that kind of person," said a 63-year-old resident of Kyiv, Oksana Melnyk. "I really wanted it all to end peacefully, but, unfortunately, a lot of our people died and it is very bitter."

Red lines

Putin has warned that Russia will not tolerate troops from the NATO alliance on Ukrainian soil. He has also shown no sign of backing down from demands for territory, including land not under Russia's military control, following his summit talks with Trump last Friday in Alaska.

Trump has not specified what form US security guarantees could take, and backed away from insisting that Russia agree to a ceasefire before any peace negotiations kick off in earnest.

Neil Melvin, director, International Security at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said Russia could drag out the war while trying to deflect US pressure with a protracted peace negotiation.

"I think behind this there's a struggle going on between Ukraine and the Europeans on one side, and the Russians on the other, not to present themselves to Trump as the obstacle to his peace process."

"They're all tiptoeing around Trump" to avoid any blame, he said, adding that on security guarantees, "the problem is that what Trump has said is so vague it's very hard to take it seriously".

The last direct talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in Turkey in July but not at head of state level. Putin also declined Zelenskiy's public invitation to meet him face-to-face in May.

Jaroslava Barbieri, a research fellow for the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House, said the European leaders and Zelenskiy did a "quite a good job in trying to keep the US on board", using a choreographed "flurry of thank yous" to keep Trump engaged.

She said the European leaders' and Zelenskiy's message to Trump was to be "cautious about whatever the Kremlin supposedly promises you, because ... whatever promises they give, it's not worth the paper they're written on".

Orysia Lutsevych, a research fellow at Chatham House, said the worst case scenario "of Trump selling Ukraine out to Putin was avoided" at Monday's talks, but she added:

"A bilateral with Putin is dangerous for Zelenskiy. Even if it happens, which is highly unlikely, Putin will blame him for obstructing peace, being unreasonable. In such a case, the question is: who Donald Trump will trust and blame for his failed peacemaking efforts."