The US has proposed security guarantees for Ukraine similar to - but separate from - the collective defence agreement between NATO member countries, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and a diplomatic source said on Saturday.

The suggestion was raised during a call US President Donald Trump held with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Saturday, the day after Trump's summit with Russia's Vladimir Putin.

“As one of the security guarantees for Ukraine, the American side proposed a non-NATO Article 5 type guarantee, supposedly agreed with Putin,” the diplomatic source told AFP on condition they not be identified in any way.

NATO's collective security is based on its Article 5 principle : if one member is attacked, the entire alliance comes to its defence.

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