Zelenskyy: Limiting security guarantees for Ukraine over time hasn’t been discussed yet
Ukraine has not discussed with the United States the duration of security guarantees, similar to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
"As it's difficult to say for how long this will last, we haven't yet discussed whether it will be limited to a certain number of years, certain guarantees, or not," Zelenskyy said at a joint press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof in The Hague on Tuesday, answering a journalist's question about whether the security guarantees being discussed with the USA are limited to a certain number of years.
"The only thing that was crucial for us was that it had to be voted on in Congress. We believe such guarantees will work. While we all understand that Russia is the aggressor, whether any guarantees will stop them in the future is, of course, something we don't know for sure. That's why we want all the guarantees—a set of provisions similar to Article 5—to determine how our partners will respond. We want to understand how they will respond to repeated aggression," he added.
The President noted that he asks "the same questions" of his partners, and they are "not very comfortable."
"And the answer is the same: if there is aggression, how will the USA respond? If there is repeated aggression, how will our European partners respond? How will the world respond? Sanctions, weapons, responses? How will it respond at sea, on the battlefield? So, there are truly many factors involved. I want to get the clearest possible answers to this. And what format will they be supported in, a legally binding one?" Zelenskyy added.
