Kyiv has long sought Nato’s Article 5 mutual defence guarantee as protection against future Russian aggression, though Washington and Berlin have previously resisted serious talks on Ukrainian accession over fears of direct confrontation with Moscow.Russia presently controls roughly 80 per cent of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, and Putin has demanded the handover of the remaining territory his forces have been unable to seize on the battlefield.Those areas encompass Ukraine’s so-called fortress belt, the primary defensive line shielding against large-scale advances towards Kyiv.Moscow has consistently maintained that Ukrainian membership of Nato is unacceptable, placing the Kushner-Witkoff proposal in direct tension with the Kremlin’s stated position.Yesterday, EU leaders agreed that Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland, alongside representatives of the EU and Nato, would speak for Europe in any forthcoming peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.Putin is understood to have accepted European participation in the talks, which American mediators regard as essential to resolving the conflict.