Putin, Donbas still in question despite security guarantees progress

President Donald Trump says Russia and Ukraine are closer to peace than ever.

Days of intense negotiations have ended, with the United States, Ukraine and Europe hailing significant progress as Trump pushes for a deal ending the Kremlin’s war by Christmas.

Washington and kyiv appear to have made notable changes to ensure progress, but huge questions remain, including whether Moscow will once again outright reject the idea of ​​making meaningful concessions.

And although the United States has now offered Ukraine the strong security guarantees it has long sought, the fate of key territories on the conflict’s eastern front lines remains crucial, but unresolved.

After meetings with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and European leaders in Berlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters on Monday that kyiv had now been offered an equivalent of NATO’s Article 5 deterrence mechanism, under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.

This guarantee would be legally binding, he said, voted on and approved by the US Congress.

Zelenskyy said the latest project was not “perfect” but was “very achievable.” He abandoned Ukraine’s long-held ambition to join NATO this weekend, ahead of the negotiations.

The guarantees constitute “the biggest victory so far for Ukraine and for Europe,” a U.S. official told reporters, warning that they “won’t be on the table forever.” The official added that they believed Russia would accept it in a final deal.

Zelensky argued that any agreement should provide concrete security guarantees to prevent future attacks from Russia. This has been a historically sensitive issue for kyiv since Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, in violation of the Budapest Memorandum, intended to guarantee Ukraine’s post-Soviet sovereignty in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons.

European leaders suggested their countries could lead a US-backed “multinational force” that would “help regenerate Ukrainian forces, secure Ukrainian skies and support safer seas”, alongside a US-led ceasefire monitoring, verification and deconfliction mechanism.

All of this was discussed in a call with Trump, Zelenskyy said, and the US leader seemed pleased with the progress.

“I think we are closer than ever,” Trump said Monday.

The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for further comment on the status of negotiations.

But the Kremlin is unlikely to share this enthusiasm.

“I think it’s highly unlikely that Putin would buy into this idea,” said Christopher Tuck, a conflict and security expert at King’s College London. “The draft agreement includes clauses diametrically opposed to political statements repeatedly made by Russia on what it considers an acceptable basis for resolving the conflict.”

The multinational force constitutes “a clear red line for Putin,” said John Lough, foreign policy chief at the New Eurasian Strategies Center, a London/Washington-based think tank focused on Russia. The Kremlin will also reject the idea of ​​a U.S.-led ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism, he added, and will likely seek restrictions on the types of weapons systems kyiv’s forces have.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told ABC News on Monday that while he believes Russia and the United States could be “close” to a deal, it cannot include the presence of foreign troops in Ukraine.

“So it’s likely to last a few more rounds,” Lough said.

And the future of eastern Ukraine remains to be determined.

Putin insists that Russia is winning on the battlefield, which gives him no incentive to negotiate what he thinks he can achieve by force.

He wants Ukraine to abandon its entire Donbas region, even if kyiv’s forces still control part of it, and that is something Zelensky has said he would never do.

“The Americans are trying to find a compromise,” Zelensky said Monday.. “They are proposing a ‘free economic zone’ (in Donbass). And I want to emphasize this again: a ‘free economic zone’ does not mean being under the control of the Russian Federation.”

Trump insisted Ukraine would have to cede territory, but it’s unclear how that compromise would work or whether the Kremlin would give him the time of day.

A US official said they had given Zelensky some “thought-provoking ideas” and would discuss them with Russia and Europe after his response. Zelensky said the United States would present the new proposal to Russia in the coming days.

Asked if any of the security guarantees proposed Monday were unacceptable to the Kremlin, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had not yet seen any updated agreements. He reiterated that Russia wants a comprehensive peace deal, not a short-term ceasefire over Christmas as kyiv has suggested.

“We want peace. We do not want a truce to give Ukraine a respite and prepare for the continuation of the war,” Peskov told reporters.

But even as the Kremlin risks blocking the most recent agreements, Tuck said, the proposed security guarantees put pressure on Russia by implying a growing consensus between Ukraine and the West on what a peace deal should look like.

“The agreement is not nothing, we are not back to square one: the declaration does indicate a more united front from the West, and getting the United States to commit, even in broad and early terms, to providing some form of security guarantees is a significant development,” Tuck said.