'Paper tiger that won't stop Putin': diplomat slams security guarantees for Ukraine

Diplomat Oleh Shamshur expressed this opinion on Espreso TV.

"Obviously, we can draw the main conclusion, at least a preliminary one, after we see this document or documents. Right now we can only go by what we've heard and read about certain excerpts, fragments of what's in these documents. Well, first of all, I want to draw attention to what Trump said in his interview with the New York Times. He said: Yes, I'm really willing to go further on guarantees for Ukraine, but I'm only doing this because I'm proceeding from the assumption that these guarantees will never be activated—I'm not quoting exactly, but essentially—because I believe that Russia wants peace and there will be no new aggression from Russia's side. Well, I don't know what's more present here—more Trump, more naivety, or more, as I say, from the devil. It seems to me mainly the latter. That's the first point. Second, we still need to clearly understand that these are not guarantees at all. In principle, this is at best an ersatz substitute for guarantees. To imagine that they would be activated by a president who still wants to maintain the ability to speak with Putin as a partner—well, after Venezuela clearly as a junior partner, but still a partner—is quite difficult for me," he said.

Oleh Shamshur noted that if we go by what Donald Trump is now saying about the U.S. role potentially being auxiliary, then it's not entirely clear to the diplomat how this correlates with what was originally established.

"Judging by what we know, these are still American guarantees and it's the U.S. President who determines whether there are grounds to activate these guarantees. The most we've seen in documents after the Paris meeting is the joint statement from Coalition of the Willing members and then the trilateral statement from Great Britain, France, and Ukraine. It talks about closing the skies, guaranteeing Ukraine's maritime borders, and enhanced military assistance to Ukraine. But again, this will be after a ceasefire, which is a very big question in itself. And what's written there as guarantees needs to be done to stop Putin. But to relegate this again to some sort of more or less distant prospect means, in my view, not delivering them at all. And the main thing we still haven't seen or heard from our European partners is what these military units, which could theoretically end up on Ukrainian territory, will be permitted to do. Will they have the right, will they be prepared for forceful confrontation? Will they be stationed close to the front line? Judging by everything, no, they won't be prepared for forceful confrontation and they'll be stationed away from the front line. Then the question arises: how exactly do they plan to deter Russian aggression? So in my view, there's a very high chance that these guarantees, in the form we know them now, will remain non-historic, they'll remain on paper. This will be that paper tiger that definitely won't be able to stop Putin," he added.