Witkoff Claims Putin Has Backed Down from a Key Moscow Red Line
According to the English section of webangah News Agency, citing Mehr News Agency and the Associated Press, Steve Witkoff, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy to West Asia, stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed in a meeting with Trump in Alaska that Washington and Brussels would offer Kyiv security guarantees akin to NATO’s collective defense obligations.
Witkoff, who attended the negotiations between Trump and Putin at a U.S. military base in Anchorage, Alaska, said this was “the first time we heard from the Russians agreeing on such an issue” and described it as a “game-changer.”
Speaking with CNN, he added: “We secured these concessions; the United States can provide protection similar to Article 5 – one of Ukraine’s primary reasons for seeking NATO membership.”
while Witkoff did not elaborate on how these agreements would function exactly, it appears that this commitment represents Putin’s most notable shift. It could serve as an alternative solution to his long-standing opposition to Ukraine joining NATO-an objective Kyiv has pursued for years.
Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty obliges members of this 32-nation military alliance to consider any armed attack against one member as an attack against all.
