NATO countries may offer Ukraine Israeli-type security guarantees

As long as NATO membership of Ukraine is not on the table, the US and other Western allies of Ukraine plan to offer Kyiv a security model to guarantee the country’s sovereign future, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

It is a security model that Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden, have compared to what Israel has now, the WSJ reported. The US and other Western allies may provide Ukraine with guarantees for weapons and advanced technology to boost the Ukrainian defense without the direct involvement of Western troops in case of an armed conflict.

According to the WSJ, the Israeli-type security agreement for Ukraine will be different from the NATO membership, which might be years away. Although Israel is not a NATO member, the country is the US “most stalwart partner in the Middle East,” according to the WSJ. The US has allocated military aid for Israel worth $38 billion from 2019 to 2028.

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According to the WSJ, western leaders may believe that the Israeli-type security agreement with Ukraine can stop Russia from yet another invasion of Ukraine in the future. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda told the WSJ that Western allies of Ukraine are considering offering Kyiv Israeli-type security guarantees instead of NATO membership. The discussions on the security guarantees for Ukraine “are ongoing right now,” the Polish President said.

The concept of the security model is related to Ukraine’s future membership in NATO. It is based on the Kyiv Security Compact, presented in September 2022 by a working group headed by the head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

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Western officials told the WSJ that such a security agreement for Ukraine could affect the course of the war with Russia, thwarting Vladimir Putin’s intentions to prolong it in hopes of undermining political support for Ukraine in the US, the UK, and the EU.

A US official confirmed to the WSJ on condition of anonymity that discussions of an Israeli-type security model for Ukraine are underway. Representatives of NATO, Ukraine, and other Western countries told the WSJ that they expect to see the US, the UK, Germany, and France among the parties to the agreement on the security guarantees for Ukraine. Still, whether such an approach to Ukrainian security will become an effective security model is unclear.

However, officials in several European countries, including France and Germany, told the WSJ that they generally agree with a security agreement for Ukraine that will include a series of bilateral guarantees within a multilateral arrangement.

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NATO countries may offer Ukraine Israeli-type security guarantees – WSJ