US and Ukraine lack clear vision of security guarantees — MP Klympush-Tsintsadze

Washington and Kyiv do not have a real understanding of security guarantees for Ukraine, believes Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on European Integration (European Solidarity faction).

"My colleagues from U4U (United for Ukraine) - an informal network of parliamentarians from different EU countries and the European Parliament, who have been supporting Ukraine since 2022, have made far from the first advocacy visit. The last one was to Washington and Chicago together with colleagues from Lithuania, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Germany and Spain. Our meetings in Washington with congressmen and senators, in the White House, and think tanks, unfortunately, indicate that there are no real discussions and real understanding of what security guarantees for Ukraine might look like in Congress, as well as in the Ukrainian parliament," Klympush-Tsintsadze told Interfax-Ukraine.

According to the MP, it is now clear that the United States does not consider the deployment of its troops in Ukraine or any other radical intervention as a security guarantee, and "therefore, it is quite difficult to say that the president considers a 100 percent agreed bilateral plan of security guarantees from the US." Klympush-Tsintsadze noted that if we are talking about the monitoring of the conditional demarcation line by the United States, or the provision of US access to intelligence information to Ukraine, or the sale of weapons to Ukraine - "these are, of course, very important elements of our ability to defend ourselves, but this is definitely not a guarantee of our security." Klympush-Tsintsadze emphasized that we would like to hope that we are talking about something more powerful, more effective, which can really become a deterrent for future Russian attacks. "But this whole structure and negotiation tracks look quite surreal from the point of view that first of all we should achieve a ceasefire, and then hold negotiations. Some of our interlocutors in the United States understand this, but these are isolated voices. We should not expect any changes in US policy on this issue in the near future. Moreover, the interest of American counterparts in "more productive relations with Russia" was also voiced at separate meetings in the US," Klympush-Tsintsadze noted.

At the same time, the head of the committee emphasized that at the same time there are many circles and individuals who are ready to join in the advocacy of pressure on Russia in the form of sanctions and additional assistance to Ukraine.

"This is exactly what we were talking about with diaspora communities from Central European countries, in particular with the Lithuanian and Polish communities, who are ready to interact with Ukrainians who are sufficiently organized in Chicago and focused on further work to support Ukraine," said Klympush-Tsintsadze.