'Technical or political reasons': analyst on missing U.S. signature in Coalition of Willing statement

Volodymyr Horbach, Executive Director of the Institute for the Transformation of Northern Eurasia, stated this on Espreso.

"The position of the United States has not been announced—the official position. So far, all commentators are referring to a publication in the American newspaper The New York Times. I'm not talking about whether there is a difference or not, but about explaining the reasons. Because there can be both a technical and a political component here. The technical part may be that yesterday at this Coalition of the Willing summit, the United States simply had no one to sign this declaration. Since the States were represented by two participants who, essentially, are not authorized to sign documents on behalf of the state. This is the special representative of the U.S. president on Russia, on the Middle East, but not on Ukraine—Steven Witkoff. And simply the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who may not have any legal status whatsoever at these negotiations. So there was simply no one to sign, and this may explain the technical reason why the United States did not sign this," he said.

At the same time, Volodymyr Horbach noted that the political reason may be that the United States has decided to pause negotiations, primarily with the Europeans.

"But there may be—and this is more likely, well, perhaps both reasons simultaneously, of course. But the second reason is political, and it lies in the fact that the United States has decided to hold a pause in its negotiations, primarily with European partners, regarding this Coalition of the Willing. And all of this is caused by the need to travel back to Washington, or to Mar-a-Lago, to speak with Donald Trump again, to ask him for something again—perhaps he wants, I don't know, to trade Greenland for this signature or this so-called guarantee. We don't know this, but I think we'll find out soon, and there will be a continuation of communication at the level of heads of state and government with the participation of President Trump, and then we'll hear some real position and justification for the United States' actions on this issue. But I want to once again focus our viewers' attention on what American guarantees actually mean in this situation," he added.

The Executive Director of the Institute for the Transformation of Northern Eurasia noted that a sentence disappeared from the text of the Paris Declaration stating that the United States would defend its European allies who deploy their troops in Ukraine.

"In the event of an attack on these allied troops in Ukraine, the Americans would defend them. This exact point disappeared. But what is this really? This is a guarantee for those who provide guarantees. In other words, it's some kind of double guarantee, or two-tiered. Our European partners are ready to provide Ukraine with guarantees only on the condition that they themselves will be protected by the United States. That is, on the condition that the United States will provide guarantees to protect European partners, but not even Ukraine—just European allies. Well, this in itself already sounds and looks quite absurd. Why not directly? And ultimately, why should these, let's say, commitments or assurances be called guarantees? Security guarantees. After all, a security guarantee is a readiness to enter into war on the side of your ally. Those are real security guarantees. This does not exist either from the United States or from our European partners," he concluded.