Capitol Silence. How US "security guarantees" are turning into political bargaining

The next round of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States is scheduled for February 4-5 in Abu Dhabi. According to the results of the previous round Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the document on American security guarantees for Ukraine was "100% ready." But no one in Washington has seen it.

We explain what we know about US guarantees, why Europe does not trust them, and what the political bargaining is about.

Silence as a strategy. What is known about US guarantees for Ukraine

These will be security guarantees for Ukraine, which is part of the EU's future, Zelenskyy said at a press conference in Vilnius on January 25:

"For us, security guarantees are bilateral security guarantees with the United States. The document is 100% ready, and we expect our partners to be ready, to tell us the date and place when we will sign it."

The US Congress did not comment on this directly. In the Trump administration LIGA.net only reminded that "the US president has repeatedly emphasized his desire to end the war," and that "negotiations are ongoing."

This is not chaos, but a policy of controlled uncertainty. When there is no clear answer, silence is equal to flexibility.

"The US simply doesn't understand what is one hundred percent ready," says the source LIGA.net they have no idea what the document the Ukrainian president is talking about looks like."

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, the head of the Parliamentary Committee on European Integration, confirms this in a conversation with LIGA.net:

I was in Washington, talking to senators. The Senate knows nothing about the document, no one has seen it and no one is discussing it even in general terms

This silence is a message. The American bureaucracy does not like a vacuum for no reason. If the documents exist only in the Office of the President and the White House, it means that we are not talking about guarantees, but about political trade.

The beautiful word "guarantees" conceals a diplomatic trap for Ukraine, warns Atlantic Council analyst Peter Dickinson.

It's not about protection, it's about a demand: retreat from Donbas, and then we will protect you. This is a compromise that is convenient for the United States but disastrous for Ukraine.

This sounds like a repeat of 1994. Back then, the Americans put pressure on Ukraine to give up its nuclear arsenal, promising that it would guarantee stability. History has already shown how such compromises end, he adds.

Guarantees are meaningful only if there is a willingness to act, states LIGA.net former diplomat and advisor to the US National Security Council, Steven Stefanovich.

"Trump wants short-term peace, even at the cost of long-term instability," he explains. "He says he guarantees security, but he is showing Putin that he does not care about Ukraine's security. This makes the guarantees themselves questionable."

"Three security clusters". What Ukraine means by the concept of guarantees

What the president says in public – "a ready-made document" and "agreements reached" – sounds more complicated in his off-the-record statements. During a conversation with Ukrainian journalists, Zelenskyy explained that the guarantees are divided into three clusters: the "coalition of the willing," the EU, and the US.

It is the American bloc that remains the most problematic.

"Some technical issues have been resolved," the president says, "but the vision of ending the war remains very problematic. Ukraine believes that a compromise is a bilateral movement, not a demand to cede territory. We cannot change our territorial integrity.

The issue of territories is now the main unresolved issue. Russia wants to call its territorial claims a compromise. The American side offered a "compromise solution in the form of a free economic zone."

The President explained that Kyiv is ready to discuss any economic model, but "control of the territory must remain Ukrainian." He is not ready for compromises that change Ukraine's borders.

"A New Geopolitical Wrapper". What are Europe's prospects?

Stephen Moore, a lawyer and former congressional consultant, explains that there are two levels of international agreements in the United States: a treaty that has the force of law and an executive agreement that is based only on the political goodwill of the president.

Guarantees without Senate ratification are pure politics. And even after ratification, the main thing is not the text, but annual funding. Otherwise, Ukraine will once again find itself in a situation where it will have to fight for aid every year.

Moore calls such documents "assurances" – promises without legal obligation. "Budapest 2, but in a new geopolitical wrapper. The question is not one of legal technique, but of philosophy: America is ready to guarantee only what does not tie its own hands.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, the situation is being perceived with increasing concern. The head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, said in a commentary LIGA.netthat "any concessions by Ukraine are possible only if there are tangible, practical security guarantees".

By "practical," she does not mean agreed drafts, but rather mechanisms such as deployment of contingents, targeted funding, and defense coordination.

They cannot be conditional," says Kallas.

Roland Freudenstein, co-founder of the Brussels Freedom Hub think tank, adds: "Europe realizes that Washington is playing a complicated game. It probably deliberately keeps it secret to avoid political opposition. But it looks as if America is more concerned about an agreement with Russia than the stability of Ukraine.

Real guarantees are not documents. They have a specific physical embodiment – people, equipment, money. Only a few countries in the modern world have real military guarantees from the United States: Israel receives financial packages for years to come, South Korea and Japan have American troops on their soil, and Taiwan has the right to defense assistance, but without the US commitment to fight for it. Ukraine has so far received only political support and weapons assistance.

Even Article 5 of NATO does not guarantee automatic entry into war. But this is a much more modest promise. "Weapons supplies, sanctions, diplomacy – all of these are important. But they are not guarantees," Dickinson adds, "Guarantees are when someone is willing to fight for you. We know that the United States will not do that."

This document, even if it exists, is not a final document, but a test. The United States is testing whether Ukraine can agree to a political compromise that will look like peace.

Zelenskyy talks about being 100% ready, but this phrase is more an attempt to maintain confidence in the process than an acknowledgment of the result. While America is silent, Ukraine is forced to prove that its security is not divided into clusters. And that the compromise that saves the world from conflict should not simultaneously change the map of the state.

Therefore, for now, the main guarantee of security is the realization that no one can protect Ukraine better than it can itself.