After the talks held in Berlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed earlier reports that Ukraine, the US, and Europe have reached a preliminary agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine that are similar in substance to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

“We are counting on five documents, some of which concern security guarantees. Legally binding, that is, a vote and approval by the US Congress. Where there is an ‘Article 5,’ as in NATO. And this will be voted on by Congress. There are agreements on this issue, and this is very important,” Zelenskyy told reporters on the plane departing from Berlin. “I think we are very close to strong security guarantees (...) theoretically, today we see good elements on paper, but the reality is the vote in the US Congress.”

The sides reached agreement on such a document as part of a peace plan, citing two American officials.

This agreement is based on extremely strong guarantees that are essentially similar to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, as well as very strong deterrence mechanisms; they relate to the size of the Ukrainian forces and the weapons available to them, one official told reporters. If you define such strong guarantees, it is important to ensure truly reliable defense mechanisms so that the likelihood of their activation is as low as possible, the official added.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty obliges all NATO countries to consider an attack on one of them as an attack on all and to provide assistance to the victim in one form or another, but not necessarily military assistance, as they deem necessary.

Also, one of the officials said that US President Donald Trump believes he can persuade Russia to agree to guarantees for Ukraine similar to NATO’s Article 5.

However, the source of this confidence—given the comments from the Kremlin and the Russian foreign ministry, which viewed changes to the White House’s initial plan with skepticism—remains unclear.