With the Trump administration in power, Ukraine – a key Western ally – faces a growing dilemma: continue fighting against Russia without US military backing or negotiate a peace deal that could require significant concessions to Moscow.

Under increasing pressure from US President Donald Trump, a cornered Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded security guarantees from the Western alliance as a condition for any potential peace agreement with Russia.

Many European states have previously made it clear that they cannot provide security guarantees to Ukraine without US backing. The Trump administration recently asked European states how they could contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine, according to Reuters. The US also asked European countries what they would need from Washington to be able to contribute to this effort. This suggests that the US might be willing to do certain things to encourage Europeans to contribute to security guarantees Ukraine is asking.

But what exactly would those guarantees entail?

“Ukraine seeks a credible threat of a military retaliation against Russia by the US and its NATO allies should Russia use the ceasefire to rebuild its military and attack Ukraine later,” says Matthew Bryza, a former US ambassador to Azerbaijan and an expert on Eurasian affairs.

“The most preferred form of such a guarantee for Ukraine would be the membership in NATO with the Article 5 guarantee of sort of retaliation against an attacking Russia,” Bryza tells TRT World. But the US and Germany remain reluctant to allow Ukraine to be part of the Atlantic alliance, fearing escalation with Russia.

Article 5 is NATO’s cornerstone, ensuring that an armed attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. But despite Ukraine’s repeated appeals, Western powers have hesitated to offer a clear path to membership.

During a recent forum, Zelenskyy signalled his desperation by suggesting he would resign in exchange for Ukraine's NATO membership. His efforts have been further complicated by Trump, who called Zelenskyy “a dictator”, and accused him of starting the war with Russia, significantly increasing pressure on the Ukrainian leader.

Zelenskyy continues to demand what he previously proposed with his 10-point peace plan, says Muzaffer Senel, a visiting scholar of the Department of Politics at Binghamton University. “For him, the two indispensable security guarantees are the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity and membership to NATO,” Senel tells TRT World.

Uncle Sam: No NATO!

So far, the US has refused to provide Ukraine with firm security guarantees. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly described NATO membership for Ukraine, and the full recovery of its territories as “unrealistic” signalling that Zelenskyy will have a tough time defending his peace vision in the current political environment.

Ukraine’s NATO membership “seems to have become a taboo subject from now on, at least in the short to medium term, given the recent talks in Riyadh between Washington and Moscow,” says Ecaterina Matoi, a scholar at the Bucharest-based Middle East Political and Economic Institute (MEPEI).

The shifting US stance was evident during Monday’s UN meeting marking the third anniversary of the bloody war. The US reportedly forced Kiev to withdraw its European-backed UN resolution, which urged Russia to leave Ukrainian territories. Instead, Washington introduced a separate resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire—without mentioning Russian-occupied regions. In a surprising move, Russia backed the US proposal, which was later approved by the UN Security Council.

“The US under Trump sees that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not step back even though Kiev continues to resist Moscow’s offensive, which has recently made significant gains across eastern Ukraine. They also assess that the war can not go on forever. As a result, the Trump administration does not see that continuing this war has a rational base,” says Senel.

For Trump, a real estate magnate, Ukraine is “a black hole” consuming US resources with no clear return on investment, Senel explains.

Complicating matters further, reports have surfaced about tense negotiations over Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. The US has called for Ukraine to grant significant access to these resources, which are vital for advanced technologies and defence systems. Zelenskyy initially resisted these demands, which Trump has raised to pay for US military aid to Ukraine, escalating tensions between the two presidents.

But Trump recently announced that Zelenskyy would visit Washington to sign a rare earth minerals deal, which the US president called “a very big deal”. While the deal’s details are not clear, it does not mention US security guarantees to Ukraine, according to reports. “We’ll be looking [at] … general security for Ukraine later on,” said Trump, adding that Ukraine would receive “$350bn, military equipment and the right to fight on”, according to the deal.

What are other options?

Ukraine’s NATO ambitions are not new. Senel draws attention to an important NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 when former US President George W Bush insisted that NATO needed to accept Ukraine and Georgia to the alliance. However, European allies, particularly from France and Germany, opposed the move, fearing Russian retaliation. Some analysts believe Trump is now using the current crisis to penalise those same European nations for their past reluctance.

With NATO membership off the table for now, Ukraine might seek unilateral security guarantees from the US, says Senel. Kiev remains skeptical about whether the EU alone could deter future Russian aggression.

Another option is a multilateral treaty involving the Western states of the five permanent UN Security Council members – the US, the UK, France, China and Russia – as guarantor states of a peace deal between Kiev and Moscow, according to Senel. “In this option, the most important issue is who will be guarantor states to a possible peace deal,” he says.

This potential treaty of guarantee on Ukraine might be similar to the Treaty of Guarantee signed by Türkiye, Greece and the UK, the three guarantor states, on the status of Cyprus island and its Turkish and Greek-speaking populations. Türkiye is the protector of Turkish Cypriots while Greece is the guarantor of Greek Cypriots, according to the 1960 treaty.

The European security alternative

Bryza says that European nations, such as France and the UK, could deploy peacekeeping forces in Ukraine to enhance security once a ceasefire is in place. But these forces would be deployed “not to frontlines but rather further back,” receiving some sort of US backstop such as airlifting and air defence, he adds.

However, during a recent press conference between Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, the US president declined to commit to providing such support, casting doubt on this approach.

While some EU nations could explore security arrangements through enhanced cooperation mechanisms, their ability to deter Russia without US backing remains questionable. Russia will be extremely cautious in terms of its military engagements with any area under the NATO umbrella, but Moscow will be much less carefree against EU-linked forces, says Senel.

“Look at the Snake Island example. While the Black Sea island is under Ukrainian sovereignty, its territorial waters belong to Romania. Russians took over the island at the beginning of the Ukraine war, but they evacuated their forces after recognising that territorial waters are under NATO protection,” he adds.

As Ukraine’s battle for security guarantees continues, its Western allies remain divided, and the future of the war remains uncertain. Whether a NATO alternative emerges—or if Ukraine will have to settle for a less robust security arrangement—remains to be seen.