Providing Ukraine with Article 5 protection without NATO membership remains open issue – Trump's envoy Witkoff

Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump's Special Envoy to the Middle East, has stated that Ukraine currently cannot join NATO due to the positions of Russia and the US, but the issue of providing security guarantees to Ukraine under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty remains open.

Source: Witkoff in an interview with American propagandist Tucker Carlson

Details: Witkoff noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Andrii Yermak, Head of the President's Office, have effectively acknowledged that Ukraine cannot join NATO in the near future.

"I think that Zelenskyy, and he's got a right-hand guy, Yermak, I think that they've largely conceded that they are not going to be a member of NATO," he said.

Witkoff pointed out that discussions continue regarding the possible application of the collective defence principle to Ukraine, as outlined in Article 5 of the NATO Treaty.

He added that the issue of the US or European countries providing Ukraine with such protection remains a topic of discussion.

Quote: "There’s been all kinds of talk about… whether Ukraine could have that in some respect from the United States or European nations without being a member of NATO. And I think that's open for discussion."

Background:

• At the beginning of March, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposed extending the application of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty to Ukraine without it officially joining NATO. She believes this would provide long-term and effective security for Ukraine and help expose Russia's potential bluff.
• US President Donald Trump said on 26 February that as part of a future agreement to end the war in Ukraine, he has ruled out the possibility of Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Alliance. Trump also claimed that NATO – and more specifically, the promise that Ukraine would eventually become a member of it – was the reason for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 
• Earlier, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine as part of a "negotiated settlement" of the war. 

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