Key Points and Summary – President Donald Trump has detailed his proposal for U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine, confirming “no boots on the ground” but stating a readiness to use the U.S. Air Force to police the skies and enforce a peace deal.
-The plan could involve U.S. fighters based in Poland or Romania patrolling Ukrainian airspace and anti-ballistic missiles intercepting Russian attacks.
-This airpower-centric approach is being floated as Russia rejects the idea of NATO ground troops in Ukraine. However, the proposal remains vague and raises high-stakes questions about the rules of engagement for U.S. pilots.
Here Comes the U.S. Air Force to the Rescue in Ukraine?
WARSAW, POLAND – US President Donald Trump has said that he is ready to send the US Air Force (USAF) to police the skies above Ukraine in order to enforce a peace agreement between the allies and Russia. These details were released on Tuesday, August 19, when Trump outlined the specifics of American security guarantees.
Trump had previously stated that there would be no US boots on the ground once a peace agreement was reached with Moscow.
However, no details or restrictions were stated regarding the use of American airpower.
The package of American air support options proposed would reportedly include more than just US fighter aircraft based in Poland or elsewhere. Another option would be anti-ballistic missiles that would be launched from neighbouring countries, but would intercept Russian missiles over Ukraine.
These discussions about US airpower have taken place in the hours immediately following the August 18 meeting in the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a coterie of major European leaders. The collective objective of these leaders was to develop a plan to end the three-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine.
Boots on the Ground and Closing the Skies
While these White House discussions were taking place, the US President had contacted Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the next steps. The latter supposedly said he was willing to meet Zelensky one-on-one—the first time he has agreed to do so since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Another watershed moment was Putin’s claim that he was prepared to accept Western security guarantees for Ukraine. But what those guarantees mean operationally remains to be defined, and makes those trying to negotiate an end to the war nervous.
The quandary confronting the allies at the moment is that the “coalition of the willing” cannot possibly muster enough troops to operate the current line of contact. This assumes that Putin would agree to having NATO member troops deployed on Ukraine’s territory, which, since it would prevent him from launching a new war on his neighbor, he will not.
Therefore, the Kremlin has reiterated its absolute opposition to the presence of any NATO combat units in Ukraine. Military support for Ukraine is likely to be limited to the mix of what has been provided before: training, intelligence, and logistics support. Though an increase of such support may be possible.
Additionally, there would likely be assistance for Ukraine to rebuild its battered and battle-tested military.
At least as important as all of the other aid initiatives would be a continuation of the supply of weapons and ammunition that has been flowing to Ukraine for the past three years.
The Way Forward
Putin has proposed holding meetings with the Ukrainian president in Moscow, a proposal Zelenskiy wisely declined.
However, what is lacking from the Western side—even if a venue is agreed upon—is the definition of the coalition’s offer of security guarantees.
Trump told Fox News: “We’re willing to help them [Ukraine] with things, especially, probably talk about by air, because there’s nobody [has the] kind of stuff we have.” But the feedback from London and Brussels is that Trump’s behind-closed-doors discussions on security guarantees have been across the board and as lacking in specifics as his public statements.
The proposed air policing of Ukraine’s airspace is one option. This operation could be done by basing aircraft in Poland or Romania, but there would still need to be very clear rules of engagement if those air patrols are to be anything more than a symbolic gesture.
From inside the cockpit, pilots need to know whether or not they can fire if Russia violates the peace deal. That would mean shooting down any Russian aircraft firing a cruise missile at a Ukrainian city.
John Foreman, a former British military attaché in Moscow who spoke to the BBC, has been following the war in detail. He told the UK state-run broadcaster, “Russia might accept a US security guarantee for Ukraine in return for formal recognition of the occupied territories, effectively partitioning Ukraine for the long term, and no NATO (troops) in Ukraine and no Ukraine in NATO … Whatever happens, the Coalition of the Willing is no substitute for USUSower.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the US Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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Bernard
August 21, 2025 at 2:51 pm
Another article that starts with a false premise. President Trump has not said the US would provide air coverage. He simply did not rule it out. Why give away your strategy in negotiations. Whatever is done, both sides have to agree. The first premise that is always thrown out is Russia attacked Ukraine willy-nilly. No. The Dombass is 95 percent ethnic Russian. After the coup, The Dombass wanted autonomy. Ukraine forces killed North of 14k residents stopping the push for autonomy. Russia invaded the Dombass over this and a stalemate ensued. An agreement between Ukraine and Russia was about to settle this and western governments interfered, pushing Ukraine to fight on with their support. Now this is also a historical route for invasion of Russia. That’s why so many ethnic Russian people are there. Want to know more go look at the end of WW-II. Also Gorbachev and Reagan did a handshake deal that NATO would advace no further if he opened the Berlin wall. Never put on paper. We the west-NATO violated that agreement time after time. Ukraine was the last straw. So Russia didn’t really have sufficient forces to really overcome Ukraine. Those warmongering saying his next move was Europe are either ignorant or intentionally pushing a fight. Money laundering everywhere. The MIC makes money hand over fist. Do your own research. Don’t let articles like this be your only view.
Swamplaw Yankee
August 24, 2025 at 3:20 am
Oh boy. A peer reader who is read? Bernard is so welcome.
So, advice: Do your own research. Opps, that is just so very un-MAGA. Bernard, expects the MAGA elite, or even MAGA rank and file, to know about the 1000 years of russkie ethnic genocide against Ukrainians. The MAGA do not know about the ancient genetic need of the ethnic russkie peasant to genocide Ukrainians as they steal ancient Ukrainian soil. The question is, how many MAGA rank + file want to know?
Or the op-ed hacks. They will not read anything about the ethnic ruskkie peasant sex trade in Ukrainian children from 600 or 500 hundred years back. The Russkie sex traders prepared “Lolita” and “Bacha bazi” packages for sale to muslim slavers for Ottoman Gold 600 plus years back.
The latest sex trader of 2025, Putin, has mass abducted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children for his successful “little green groomer” military sex trade business. The difference?
In 2014 the POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal unilaterally greenlighted the re-start of the ancient 1000 year old genocide of Ukrainians by their parasitic neighbours, the ethnic russkie peasant. As Jeffrey Epstein operated in 2014 in the same elite circles as Obama, the moral turpitude of child abuse was quite acceptable to the Obama clique. Putin was thrilled to get the green light to re-start the genocide and provide long needed personal sex satiation to his very needy ethnic deviants. 11 years later, and the russkie deviants so love Putin for his free, n0-cost air shipped “Lolita” Packages.
The Bernard con of “ethnic” russkies. The same con was perpetrated in 1986 in the Serbian Government. That was decided by the Russkies that this issue was to be the sole, only issue in Serbia that was to be used as agit-prop. This lead to the Balkan War miasma. The Balkan War is really useful to know and analyse.
But a different and complex issue, one needing a few books of data. The Kantian and neo-Kantian caveats apply in this genocidal play ground of post-emotional comprehension.
The Bernard raised canard is used by the ethnic russkie genociders to bamboozle the Yankee Doodle Dandy. The russkie genociders know well that zero MAGA will research the way the ethnic Russkie uses this
fake, con on the Yankee personality.
The Bernard mind just ignores the many CENTURIES of ethnic russkie genocide of Donbas Ukrainians and every other area of Ukraine Ukrainians. Want to go thru the many oblasts, Bernard?
The russkie butchers of today loves hiding behind the ruskie love of Halloween costumes. The russkie butchers father wore a Soviet costume when the ethnic Russkie decided to genocide 20,000,000 Ukrainians in 1932-33 using Siberia and starvation techniques. The HOLODOMOR was a much greater killer than the lesser Holocaust but Bernard refuses to raise this issue the russkie willful, forceful application of mass starvation as a tool of their ancient need for genocide of Ukrainians. Why is that exactly, Bernard? ” Never put on paper” maybe for a reason?
So, huge numbers Russkies mass murderers left moscow in 1934, took over the Ukrainian factories and farms of starved dead Ukrainians as FREE real estate. Suddenly Donbas and elsewhere had happy russkie mass murderers, so happy that they successfully stole the homes and businesses of Ukrainian families they had just starved.
In 2025, Bernard wails over the con that the russkie complicent children of mass murderers pulled on him. “We killed every one Ukrainian living in this town, so we russkies now all speak russkie in Donbas. The stupid Yankees must never speak about our many centuries of genocide and theft from Ukrainians.”
So, Bernard forgets about millions of Ukrainians killed by the invading parasite russkies. OK. But what about the 2014 POTUS OBAMA role in greenlighting the re-start of the ancient 1000 year old genocide of Ukrainians. POTUS Obama gave Putin the covert OK to invade and butcher.
The corollary is that the USA refused in 2013 to inform their allies and the WEST that Betrayal of the WEST was planned. The POTUS Obama unilaterally greenlighted the staggering geopolitical loss to NATO of the Ukraine’s Crimean soil, families and Black/Azov Sea legal zones to NATO’s prime vile Cold War enemy Putin.
There is zero evidence in the public realm that the marxist Obama of 2014 ever informed the West, NATO that he planned to betray by allowing the decades of NATO hemming in the Commie russkies to be be reversed + gifted away by a conniving POTUS soon to be traitor.
Lot of basic facts that Bernard has wrong or omitted. -30-