After President Trump’s high-level meeting at the White House last week with President Zelenskyy and several European leaders, attention has turned to what security guarantees for Ukraine might look like if a peace deal is reached. Ukraine remains understandably wary of assurances that sound strong on paper but prove meaningless in practice. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum —under which Ukraine gave up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for promises later violated by Russia in 2014—remains a cautionary tale.

The most effective way to guarantee Ukraine’s long-term security is NATO membership. But in the short term, President Trump has repeatedly stated that he does not support this idea, nor will he agree to U.S. troops on Ukrainian soil. With this political reality

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