Aleks Phillips
US negotiators have touted the idea of Ukraine withdrawing its remaining forces from the eastern Donbas region in exchange for NATO membership, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.The Ukrainian president's comments come after US President Donald Trump's envoys met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky as part of US efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Kyiv has long sought membership of the military alliance, but this has previously been opposed by the US and others while Russia has said another Nato member on its border is unacceptable.
Russia controls most of the industrial region of Donbas and Zelensky has consistently said Ukraine is unwilling to give up sovereign territory.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
"The Americans raised a question: 'What if Ukraine joins Nato? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?' This was the first time this had been raised," Zelensky said in remarks released by his office on Saturday.
He went on to say that if he received a proposal that contained security guarantees, no constraints on Ukraine's military and funds to rebuild the country, he would put it to a referendum.
US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff travelled to the Irish capital, Dublin, on Thursday to meet Zelensky, after a round of talks with Putin in Moscow.
Comments by both Putin and Kremlin officials suggest that Russia's position on the war has not shifted, and that Moscow's demands for territory and neutrality continue to far exceed what Ukraine is prepared to consider.
Moscow has previously proposed limits on the size of Ukraine's military, territorial concessions and Kyiv's guaranteed neutrality as conditions of a peace deal.
Ukraine has rejected these, arguing that such constraints would hamper its ability to stave off any future invasion.
Russia has now raised the stakes further. It has revived 2021 demands for Nato to halt any expansion in Russia's vicinity and to roll back military infrastructure from countries of central and eastern Europe that became Nato members following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The US and other Western nations dismissed these demands then - and Moscow invaded Ukraine a few months later.
However, questions of European security were on the agenda of the latest round of talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US in Abu Dhabi this week.
Russia has insisted it will not agree to cease fighting until a final peace deal is in place that would include territorial settlements as well as security arrangements.
Map showing the four fortress cities in Ukraine's Donbas - with Russia's military advance in Ukraine shown in red
In the comments, made on Friday but only released on Saturday, Zelensky said that the US proposal made him believe that "Nato is back on the agenda".
But he cautioned: "You have also heard Putin's signals, and this is an extremely difficult conversation."Russia currently occupies roughly a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including most of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that compose the Donbas.
Ceding the small portions of land Ukraine still controls there would be symbolically significant for Kyiv.
Zelensky has previously spoken of retaking Russian-controlled territory in four of Ukraine's regions, as well as the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
The latest round of talks come after a period of fraught relations between Kyiv and Washington over Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities deep inside Russia, which Trump had asked Ukraine to pause to facilitate the supply of Russian diesel to ease global fuel prices.
Zelensky then accused US officials of limiting Ukraine's Starlink internet service, which it uses to co-ordinate defensive operations, while Trump said it was "time for Ukraine to get a new president" and called for fresh elections.
Elections are suspended while Ukraine remains under martial law, but Zelensky has previously said he was willing to hold them within months of a peace deal being reached and would give up the presidency in exchange for Nato membership.
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