Name: What security guarantees does the US peace plan grant Ukraine — and are they enough of a deterrent?
Uploaded: 2025-11-24T16:56:11.000Z
Duration: 5 min 58 s
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We begin in Geneva, where an upbeat US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has hailed a day of talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, saying that he's very optimistic that a deal can be reached soon.

Rubio joined Ukrainian and European officials for a series of meetings to discuss a U.S. peace plan.

He described it as the most productive day on the issue in the past 10 months.

But he wouldn't get into the details of the discussions weeks ago.

Let's have a listen to some of what Secretary Rubio had to say on Sunday.

the goal was to take, you know, what knows, 28 points or 26 points, depending on which version, as it continue to evolve and try to narrow the ones that were open items.

And we have achieved that today in a very substantial way.

Now, obviously, like any final agreement, they'll have to be agreed upon by the presidents.

And there are a couple issues that we need to continue to work on.

But I think the report today is that I think today was worthwhile.

It was very, very it is probably the most productive day we have had on this issue.

Mikhail Alekseev is professor of political science at San Diego State University, and he joins me for more.

U.S. secretary of State Marco Rubio there saying he's very optimistic after a first day of talks.

Ukrainian officials said that they also see progress.

I think that what the comments by Secretary Rubio reflect is what we have known all along, that Ukraine has been much more cooperative, much more flexible actor in these negotiations, open to sensible compromises.

And the question is whether any kind of proposal, any kind of deal, meets two requirements that can actually lead to durable secession of hostilities.

One would be the ceasefire of the kind that President Donald Trump proposed earlier, to which Russia never agreed, but

And the second one would be significant measures to stop Russia from further escalation, from further waging war.

Russia will not see any reason to stop after any kind of peace deal unless there are provisions there that can actually send the message to Moscow that the cost of further military action are going to be detrimental to Russia.

Those two provisions that you just pointed out, you said that Ukraine is very flexible.

How realistic is it that it can really shift the plan?

Well, that is what we don't know and we have seen on the part of the White House moves in different directions.

It will have to move significantly more back to the kind of actions that President Donald Trump articulated earlier, such as putting more pressure on India and China even repositioning US Nuclear submarines, discussing NATO troops on the ground as part of some kind of peacekeeping guarantee or even membership for NATO.

I believe that then either what we will have as Ukraine capitulation, Russia continues to move on, or Russia stalls, the war continues.

That second provision you pointed out, again saying the need to stop further aggression, very important to Kiev.

We know that Europe has reportedly put forward a counter proposal drafted by Germany, France and the UK suggesting that US security guarantees for Ukraine, similar to NATO's Article 5 would be something to add here.

Do you think Washington would agree to that in the first place?

Well, we have not seen much, let's say, predisposition for that kind of guarantees on the part of the United States.

We have also seen, however, that President Donald Trump may shift positions very quickly.

So at this point, then, the critical question is how long it would take for this situation to keep going, to actually, again reinstate that approach and to take it even one step further.

The Reuters news agency reporting that Zelenskyy could even meet with Trump this week.

How important is it for Zelenskyy to get that audience with the president, given the harsh realities of this plan?

And what we know is Trump's tendency to be more amenable in person.

All of these meetings are highly important.

And you are right, we see that Donald Trump calibrates his responses.

He is very attuned to changes in the situation and these kinds of.

And he also assesses the resolve of not just Zelensky, but

probably Ukrainian people to how much they would fight by talking to Zelenskyy.

So Zelenskyy, I believe, has a very good sense of Ukrainian society, and

that's what he can convey to Donald Trump.

And I think that would be very beneficial to the overall process.

That's Mikhail Alexie, professor of political science at San Diego State University.