Witkoff: “Game-changing, robust security guarantees agreed”

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff – just in the past 90 minutes on CNN:

“We agreed to robust security guarantees, that I would describe as game-changing. We didn’t think that we were anywhere close to agreeing to Article 5 protection from the United States – in legislative enshrinement, within the Russian Federation – not to go after any other territory, when the peace deal is codified... Not to go after any other European countries and violate their sovereignty.

“We got to an agreement that the United States and other European nations could effectively offer Article 5-like language to cover a security guarantee. Putin has said that a red flag is NATO admission… [But] We were able to win the following concession: the United States could offer Article 5-like protection – which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO. We were sort of able to bypass that, and get an agreement that the United States could offer Article 5 protection. It was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that.”

The video of this breaking news here:

https://x.com/EdwardMDruce/status/1957096219605365235 – also going on to re-explain the distinction between Article 5 and NATO, because writers at the New York Times and elsewhere covering it do not understand (and also incorrectly think the Budapest Memorandum was a security guarantee).

Special Envoy Witkoff’s brand new revelation is exactly what I said Saturday morning.

And The Economist suggests there is majority support for it:

“A majority of those asked are now in favour of acknowledging de facto occupation of the areas Russia already holds in exchange for genuine security guarantees from the West”

Hopefully further British media will actually cover this, and allow something positive to be said about the Alaska talks. (So far, nearly all UK outlets have ignored in favour of continued Trump-bashing.)

Ukrainian media has covered it:

Zelensky: “It is important that America agrees to work with Europe to provide security guarantees, and we are grateful to the US and the president for such a signal. This is a significant change, but there are no details of how it will work and what the role of America and Europe will be and what the EU can do. This is our main task – we need security to work in practice like NATO Article 5.”

A source of Ukrainska Pravda confirmed that this was phrased as “non-NATO Article 5 security guarantees”.

My 1,000-word plan – the kind of thing I think this is going to shake out to be:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18xdMW7yvvcCKr3iaLslIr-ILeTr2dUNLAEqRomzPCTo/edit?usp=sharing

We’ll see, in tomorrow’s Oval Office Round 2.