Trump offered Kyiv ‘platinum’ NATO-style security guarantees. Does that mean the U.S. is prepared to go war for Ukraine?
A breakthrough in Berlin?
On December 14–15, during talks between U.S. and Ukrainian delegations in Berlin, the two countries reached a compromise on one of Kyiv’s most critical issues: security guarantees. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team had been pressing Washington for such guarantees since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House in early 2025 and began pushing for a peace deal. For a long time, however, the U.S. sought to avoid taking on any binding commitments — even, for example, in exchange for the right to share in profits from the extraction of Ukraine’s natural resources.
The intensification of negotiations in November, following the emergence of a draft peace agreement, finally forced Washington to adjust its position. During the Berlin negotiations, the U.S. agreed to provide Ukraine with so-called “platinum” security guarantees modeled on Article 5 of NATO’s founding charter. In practical terms, this would mean that the conditions for triggering those guarantees for Kyiv would be the same as for full NATO members — even though Ukraine would also formally abandon its goal of joining the alliance as part of a compromise with Russia.
What does Article 5 actually say?
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is based on the principle that an attack on one alliance member is considered an attack on all. This principle, which underpins the collective security of the alliance, is often — though mistakenly — understood to mean that in the event of military aggression against one NATO country, all the others are obliged to go to war on its behalf.
So if Russia attacks Ukraine again in the future, the U.S. won’t be required to help?
Technically, it would be obliged to help, but not necessarily through direct participation in combat operations. Allies are entitled to decide for themselves what form of support they will provide to the victim of aggression — “including the use of armed force,” but not excluding other means.
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
At the same time, it’s worth noting that we still don’t know how Ukraine’s security guarantees will ultimately be worded. Whether they will be fully equivalent to Article 5, or more or less specific, will largely depend on the outcome of U.S.–Russia negotiations. It’s hard to say what level of potential threat from Washington the Kremlin would be willing to accept. And even if a compromise on security guarantees is reached, that would not necessarily mean Moscow would make concessions on the far more sensitive and contentious issue of control over territories in the Donbas.
Meduza’s Razbor (“Explainers”) team