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Russia Ukraine will accept joining the European Union as part of a U.S.-brokered deal to end the bloody and lengthy war started by Vladimir Putin nearly four years ago, U.S. officials said Monday after talks with Ukrainian representatives in Berlin.
The surprising revelation came as officials were briefing reporters after days of talks between the US President’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. donald trumpson-in-law of jared kushnerand a delegation Kyiv Which also included the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and the head of his National Security and Defense Council, Rustam Umerov.
One of the US officials involved in the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters that the proposed 20-point agreement would include “a very, very strong security package” that would provide Ukraine with “Article 5-like security guarantees” from the US and other allies, similar to the security guarantees received by NATO members. Kyiv Becoming part of a 32-member defensive alliance.
The official described the security guarantees as “the biggest victory” in the negotiations for Ukraine and Europe and said Moscow would accept those and other provisions that would provide “a strong and free Ukraine” after the implementation of the proposed agreement.
He also said Russia “Ukraine is open to joining the EU” and suggested the development would be the largest expansion of the 27-member common market since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
A second US official said the “right framework” in the agreement to end the Russia-Ukraine war could create a “new path” under which “Europe and Russia can finally build an arrangement and understanding that can lead to a more peaceful and prosperous future for all.”
The news of Moscow’s possible willingness to admit Ukraine into the EU as part of a deal with stronger security guarantees from the US and others comes less than a day after Zelensky offered to drop Kiev’s long-standing desire for NATO membership at the start of talks between himself, Witkoff and Kushner.
In a WhatsApp chat with journalists, Zelensky said that “the US and some partners in Europe did not support this direction” of NATO membership for his country.
“Thus, today, bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the US, Article 5-like guarantees for us from the US, and security guarantees from European allies as well as other countries – Canada, Japan – are an opportunity to prevent another Russian aggression,” he said.
For the US to guarantee a NATO-like response to the attack on Ukraine, any agreement would have to be submitted to the US Senate for ratification as a treaty, but one of the US officials said Trump was willing to do so to give Kiev “a platinum standard for what can be offered”.
“He [Trump] He sees it as a strategic priority that he wants to do to end the war, because he believes that if that was done, a lot of good things could happen for America,” he said.
If Moscow accepted Ukraine’s decision to join the EU, it would represent a major shift on the issue that helped provoke the current confrontation between the two countries.
In November 2013, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a deal that would have created closer ties between Ukraine and the EU, leading to protests and outrage over the bloody crackdown ordered by Yanukovych that led to his ouster in February 2014 and replacement by a more pro-Western government.
The same month, Russia invaded and illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, while also supporting separatist movements in eastern parts of the country, which remain the epicenter of fighting nearly four years after the February 2022 invasion.