Article 5 is the cornerstone of the alliance\u2019s collective defense: It states that an attack on one member will be treated as an attack on all.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my view, this is a really big step forward. And, as I said, the American side has also committed itself politically and, in perspective, legally to do this,\u201d Merz added.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy also, for the first time, suggested a solution could be in sight. \u201cBefore we take any steps on the battlefield, we need to see very clearly what security guarantees are in place,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is important that the U.S. is considering Article-5-like guarantees. There is progress there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Significant progress\u2019<\/p>\n
In a subsequent joint statement the leaders of Denmark, Finland, France, the U.K., Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and Norway joined Merz in welcoming the \u201csignificant progress\u201d in the talks. The statement was also signed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ant\u00f3nio Costa, president of the European Council, who joined the national leaders for a dinner discussion with Zelenskyy in Berlin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their statement also laid out more detail on what the new peace plan might include, suggesting that \u201cthe U.S.\u201d had \u201ccommitted\u201d alongside European leaders to guarantee the future security of Ukraine and to foster its economic recovery. This, the leaders\u2019 statement said, would include commitments to support Ukraine\u2019s army to maintain a \u201cpeacetime\u201d strength of 800,000 to be able to \u201cdeter\u201d and \u201cdefend.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peace would be enforced in part by a European-led \u201cmultinational force Ukraine\u201d made up of contributions from willing nations and \u201csupported by the U.S.\u201d This force would secure Ukraine\u2019s skies, support security at sea, and build up the Ukrainian armed forces, \u201cincluding through operating in Ukraine.\u201d The statement is not clear on exactly what role the U.S. would play in supporting the force.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Article 5 is the cornerstone of the alliance\u2019s collective defense: It states that an attack on one member…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[473,1824,2597,12,332,811,657,19655,335,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-635593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-defense","9":"tag-germany","10":"tag-military","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-security","14":"tag-ukraine","15":"tag-ukrainian-politics","16":"tag-war-in-ukraine","17":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115728105131562482","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}