What can be real security guarantees for Ukraine?

Russia can put forward a variety of conditions to agree to a pause in the war, but the most important issue is the security guarantees that Ukraine must receive from the West. If they are meaningful, the rest of Russia's demands will eventually lose their relevance .

However, the challenge is that security assurances can be understood as anything – they can be a few pieces of paper printed on a printer in the style of the Budapest Memorandum, or they can be mutual commitments backed by money and jointly working institutions.

The good news is that the latest White House summit showed that our partners understand that "security guarantees" work when they are backed by concrete numbers, expressed in budgets and specific deadlines. And it is around these numbers that the main conversations should take place until the decisive meetings between Trump and Putin take place .