8 hours ago
5
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
The Kremlin’s vision of national security comes at the expense of Ukrainian sovereignty, underlining the challenges of striking a peace deal.
Sept. 4, 2025Updated 6:14 a.m. ET
Diplomatic efforts to end the largely deadlocked war in Ukraine have focused on Western guarantees of Ukraine’s future security. But the Kremlin says it must obtain its own “security guarantees” before laying down arms.
What President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says is protection, however, would drastically limit Ukraine’s sovereignty, leaving it vulnerable to a renewed Russian attack and, many of its supporters believe, effectively turning it into a client state of Moscow. That tension over “security guarantees” — and the different ways in which the term is interpreted by the Kremlin and by the West — underlines the fundamental challenge of forging any peace deal to end Russia’s invasion.
What Mr. Putin says are Russia’s rightful national security demands have been consistent for years. They reflect a list of grievances that he refers to in shorthand as “the root causes” of the war.
Under President Trump, Russia’s concerns are finally “being heard” in Washington, Mr. Putin says. “We can see now that some mutual understanding is taking shape,” Mr. Putin said at a summit in China this week, referring to his meeting with Mr. Trump in Alaska last month.
Here’s what Russian officials mean when they talk about security guarantees and how that compares with the Ukrainian position.
NATO’s growth is a longtime Kremlin worry.
Russia’s most oft-cited demand for ending the war is a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO.
The eastward expansion of the U.S.-led military alliance after the collapse of the Soviet Union has shaped Mr. Putin’s revanchist worldview more than any other trend, his statements suggest, contributing directly to his decision to invade Ukraine.
