Western security guarantees for Ukraine are a deception

From UNIAN:

""We'll be deceived": MP explains what's wrong with the new "security guarantees" for Ukraine 

Yuriy Kobzar, 12/17/25 

When the time comes to put the guarantees into practice, the signatories will disappear again. 

Following the war, Ukraine will not receive better security guarantees than it had under the infamous Budapest Memorandum. In reality, no one will come to Ukraine's defense if Russia violates the agreement again. Roman Kostenko, MP, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense, and ATO/JFO veteran, stated this in an interview with Ukrayinska Pravda. 

He specifically criticized the American proposal to create a demilitarized buffer zone in Donbas. 

"This is complete nonsense. This is a surrender of territory, and the Russians will march there tomorrow. Any agreement with the Russians is an opportunity for them to take back the country without a fight. Tomorrow, those forces that were supposed to die in battle on our soil will march south, to Kyiv, Chernihiv Oblast, and Zaporizhzhia. We are simply giving them the opportunity to seize part of our territory without losses," he stated.

According to Kostenko, the fate of a peace agreement with a "demilitarized" Donbas will be the same as the Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine surrendered its nuclear weapons, receiving security and non-aggression guarantees from all nuclear-armed states, including Russia. 

"These are the highest-level guarantees from nuclear-armed states. No one will give us any higher ones; we'll be deceived. And then, when Russia moves again, we won't even be able to find the person who signed those guarantees. They'll all change now. Others will come, like those in Hungary and the Czech Republic, and say, 'We didn't promise you anything.' There are no guarantees that Russia won't go further," the MP believes.  

Kostanko admits that Ukraine could lose Donbas directly as a result of the fighting, but the problem is that there are no other options. 

"Having given up land once, we'll then give up the south the same way. You'll see. The Kherson region, Mykolaiv, Odesa, and they'll demand Zaporizhia from us. That's a fact. And what are the pretexts? A million. Russia is a country that blew up its own citizens to launch an operation in Chechnya," the politician notes.

Kostenko notes that Russia still has to work hard to take back Donbas by force. In his opinion, if Europe continues to help, the situation for Ukraine won't get any worse. 

"Whether we sign a peace treaty or not, 2026 is a year of war. I'm a man who has lived through dozens of ceasefires on the front lines. The ceasefire begins at 12:00, and at 12:01, the first burst of Russian machine gun fire is already fired in our direction. Here in Kyiv, all the politicians talk about a ceasefire for another week, while we're already fighting on the front lines," the MP recalls his battlefield experience."