US envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN on Sunday morning that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to allow a collective defense provision for Ukraine in a future peace deal.
Witkoff said the clause — akin to NATO’s “Article 5” agreement that an attack against one is an attack against all — was a way of getting around Russia’s insistence Ukraine never be able to join NATO itself.
“Putin has said that a red flag is NATO admission. And so what we were discussing was assuming that that held, assuming that the Ukrainians could agree to that and could live with that — and everything is going to be about what the Ukrainians can live with — but assuming they could, we were able to win the following concession that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection,” he said.
