THE KYIV DRAFT TREATY ON SECURITY GUARANTEES

The Office of the President of Ukraine has published its recommendations for a draft treaty on security guarantees.

The Kyiv Security Compact is a joint document on strategic partnership that unites Ukraine and the guarantor states.

Recommendations

The recommendations provide for a multi-level approach to guarantees. A core group of allies would make commitments to support Ukraine’s armed forces, while a broader group would provide non-military guarantees built around sanctions mechanisms.

1. The strongest security guarantee for Ukraine lies in its capacity to defend itself against an aggressor under the UN Charter’s article 51. To do so, Ukraine needs the resources to maintain a significant defensive force capable of withstanding the Russian Federation’s armed forces and paramilitaries.
2. This requires a multi-decade effort of sustained investment in Ukraine’s defense industrial base, scalable weapons transfers and intelligence support from allies, intensive training missions and joint exercises under the European Union and NATO flags.
3. The security guarantees should be affirmative and clearly formulated; they lay out a range of commitments made by a group of guarantors, together with Ukraine. They need to be legally and politically binding based in bilateral agreements but brough together under a joint strategic partnership document called the Kyiv Security Compact.
4. The package of guarantees includes preventive measures of a military, infrastructural, technical and information nature to prevent new aggression, as well as measures to be taken immediately in the event of a new encroachment on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. In addition, the structure of the Kyiv Security Compact includes a full-fledged sanctions package against the aggressor state, and may also include additional components such as agreements on providing Ukraine with modern air defense/anti-missile systems, regional agreements on security in the Black Sea, and others.
5. The Compact will bring a core group of allied countries together with Ukraine. This could include the US, UK, Canada, Poland, Italy, Germany, France, Australia, Turkey, and Nordic, Baltic, and Central European countries.
6. The security guarantees are not a replacement for Ukraine’s ambition to join NATO. This aspiration is safeguarded in the Ukrainian constitution and is a sovereign decision for Ukraine. Ukraine is also on the path to EU membership. As an EU member, Ukraine will benefit from the EU’s mutual defense clause. Both NATO and EU membership will bolster Ukraine’s security in the long-term. The guarantees outlined in no way undermine these aims but will ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself under any circumstance.