US security guarantees ready to be finalised: Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that he is “essentially ready” to finalize the bilateral security guarantee text between his country and the USA with US President Donald Trump.
As a cornerstone of any postwar solution, Ukraine sought strong guarantees committing the United States and other allies to come to Ukraine’s aid if Russia invaded again.
Ukrainian and U.S. envoys, joined by a coalition of Ukraine’s allies, are negotiating in Paris this week to resolve remaining disagreements over the peace framework that the U.S. is trying to resolve with Ukraine before offering it to Russia.
On Tuesday, the United States approved for the first time the idea of providing security guarantees to Ukraine.
Rüstem Umerov reported the results of our team’s meetings in France yesterday. The bilateral document on security guarantees for Ukraine is now essentially ready to be finalized at the highest level with the US President. It is important that Ukraine…— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 8, 2026
“The bilateral document on security guarantees for Ukraine is now essentially ready to be finalized with the President (Trump) at the highest level,” Zelenskiy said in a post on channel X.
He said that at the meeting of Ukrainian and US representatives in Paris on Wednesday, “complex problems” within the framework of the discussion until the end of the war, which lasted for nearly four years, were discussed and Ukraine presented solutions to them.
Ukraine’s president called for more pressure on Russia after new missile attacks on Russian energy infrastructure on Wednesday, arguing that the reliability of future security guarantees should be demonstrated by a response at this stage.
Under the Trump administration, the United States has changed its position from a direct supporter of Ukraine to a bipartisan peace broker and will try to get Russia to sign the agreement it negotiated with Ukraine.
Zelenskiy said the framework had been accepted by 90 percent, but thorny problems remained over control of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and Russia’s demand that Ukraine cede a strategically important slice of territory in eastern Ukraine that the Kremlin has failed to capture in almost four years of war.
“We understand that the American side will contact Russia and we are waiting for feedback on whether the aggressor is really willing to end the war,” Zelenskiy said in his letter to X.
He said the teams also discussed documents related to Ukraine’s post-war recovery and economic development.
The World Bank last year estimated the cost of Ukraine’s reconstruction and recovery at US$524 billion ($782 billion), while the Trump administration has sought to reap the economic benefits and ensure privileged post-war US access to Ukraine.
