The political scientist pointed to the EU leaders' speculation about security guarantees for Ukraine.

European leaders are speculating about providing Ukraine with security guarantees "similar to the fifth article of NATO." Political analyst Alexander Asafov told Izvestia about this on August 20.

"I have a hypothesis that European leaders are taking advantage of the fact that no one has discussed in detail what the fifth article of the NATO Charter is. Because everyone assumes that there is some kind of ironclad sequence of actions that leads to the immediate involvement of the army of NATO countries on the side of the one in whose defense the fifth article is applied," he said.

The expert stressed that the criteria for the application of this article are not unambiguous and depend on the opinion of the participating countries. He recalled that it was used only once in history — after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

Asafov also added that statements by European leaders about the possible deployment of a military contingent on Ukrainian territory contradict the constitution of Ukraine. Discussing such measures can only serve as a way to keep the topic in the public spotlight.

"French President Emmanuel Macron said that there should be several hundred thousand military contingents. This is keeping the agenda in focus and preparing for possible next rounds. European leaders continue to prepare new sanctions, which demonstrates the variety of signals coming from them. All this will be changed, withdrawn, reformulated, and so on in the future," the political scientist concluded.

The block is with you: Moscow will demand NATO guarantees on Ukraine

There is no wording about the inevitability of Kiev's joining the alliance in the communique of its summit, but this is not enough for Russia.

On August 19, the head of the European Council, Antonio Costa, said that EU leaders were considering the possibility of providing guarantees to Ukraine that would be similar to the fifth article of the NATO collective security treaty, under which military assistance to Kiev would be increased. He also noted that the Ukrainian army should become the "first line of defense", in this regard, it is necessary to strengthen military support.

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