American military support to Ukraine will be locked in for a decade under a training and weapons security deal expected to be signed on the fringes of a G7 meeting.
The deal will pledge continued shipments and training programmes to build Kyiv’s armed forces, as well as commitments for greater intelligence-sharing and joint industrial defence projects.
But sources, cited in a report by CNN, said the package would probably be an “executive order”, meaning the promises could be unravelled by a future US president.
While Joe Biden has made supporting Ukraine’s resistance against Russia one of his flagship policies, his Republican rival Donald Trump has said Washington should take less responsibility for efforts to bolster Kyiv.
The American deal will be the 15th of more than 30 bilateral agreements signed between Kyiv and its Western allies since the idea of providing long-term protection to Ukraine was conceived on the fringes of a Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania last July.
Like its allies, Washington’s offer will not contain a specific monetary pledge or a promise of a mutual defence clause, similar to Nato’s Article 5.
Instead, Ukraine will be able to trigger emergency consultations over future weapon shipments, troop training programmes and the reintroduction of Western sanctions if Russia mounts another attack on the country.
The UK, France and Germany included similar provisions in their security agreements with Kyiv.
