by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – In a potential breakthrough that could help end Europe’s bloodiest conflict in decades, Russia has reportedly agreed to extensive security protections for Ukraine as part of a possible peace deal.
U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during Friday’s Alaska summit with U.S. President Donald J. Trump to allow the United States and European allies to provide Ukraine with a security guarantee resembling Article Five of the NATO military alliance.
Article Five states that “an attack on one member is an attack on all” NATO member states. The proposed arrangement would effectively sidestep Ukraine’s formal NATO membership bid, which Moscow had long opposed.
Witkoff told U.S.-broadcaster CNN’s State of the Union program: “We got to an agreement that the United States and other European nations could effectively offer Article Five-like language to cover a security guarantee. So Putin has said that a red flag is NATO admission [of Ukraine].”
He emphasized that any deal must also be acceptable to Kyiv. “Assuming that the Ukrainians could agree to that, and could live with that, everything is going to be about what the Ukrainians can live with,” he added.
PUTIN’S UNPRECEDENTED CONCESSION
According to Witkoff, Russia’s acceptance marks a historic shift. “But assuming they could, we were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article Five-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” he explained.
“We sort of were able to bypass that [NATO membership] and get an agreement that the United States could offer Article Five protection, which was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that,” Witkoff stressed.
The announcement came just hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due at the White House on Monday. He is expected to be accompanied by several European leaders who have pledged to rally behind Ukraine following his exclusion from last week’s Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
The talks will focus on translating the tentative security framework into a comprehensive peace agreement. European leaders have also made clear they want guarantees that any deal includes territorial sovereignty, prisoner exchanges, and the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war.
Despite the progress, Moscow has so far continued to reject Ukraine’s NATO membership outright and remains unwilling to return territories annexed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Analysts caution that the breakthrough could collapse unless Kyiv accepts the compromise and Moscow follows through on its pledge. Still, the U.S. envoy’s remarks mark the most significant acknowledgment to date that Russia may accept a Western-led framework to secure Ukraine’s future outside of NATO, commentators say.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
A federal appeals court on Tuesday temporarily allowed the Trump administration to continue collecting its 10% global tariff, pausing a lower-court ruling that found the import duties unlawful for three plaintiffs who had won relief last week. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a short-term administrative stay while it considers whether to keep the tariffs in place during the government’s appeal.
Saudi Arabia launched covert airstrikes inside Iran during the recent Middle East war, according to a Reuters exclusive citing two Western officials and two Iranian officials — a move that, if confirmed, would mark the first known Saudi military action carried out directly on Iranian soil. The reported strikes came in late March after the kingdom suffered Iranian attacks, including missile and drone strikes that exposed vulnerabilities in the U.S.-backed security umbrella protecting Gulf Arab states.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday that Russia had successfully test-fired its new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile — nicknamed “Satan II” by NATO — declaring it the most powerful missile in the world and saying it would enter combat service by the end of 2026.
Hungary’s new government signaled Monday it will continue buying Russian energy despite European Union plans to phase out imports of Russian oil and natural gas, raising the prospect of an early confrontation with Brussels.
More than 100 new evangelical churches have reportedly opened and thousands of people have been baptized in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022, church leaders say.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said an agreement between Iran and the United States may be the best path to ending Israeli military operations in Lebanon, while defiantly rejecting any outside demand that the Iranian-backed terrorist group disarm.
U.S. federal prosecutors announced criminal charges Tuesday against the operator of the cargo ship that struck and destroyed Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in 2024, killing six construction workers.