Won’t cede land: Zelenskyy offers to drop NATO bid for US security guarantees

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday voiced readiness to drop his country's bid to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees, but rejected the US push for ceding territory to Russia as he arrived in Berlin for talks with US envoys on ending the war.

Zelenskyy arrived at the Chancellery ahead of the expected talks with US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, part of a series of meetings in Berlin between Ukrainian, US and European officials.

Responding to journalists' questions in audio clips on a WhatsApp group chat before the talks, Zelenskyy said since the US and some European nations had rejected Ukraine's push to join NATO, Kyiv expected the West to offer a set of guarantees similar to those offered to the alliance members.“These security guarantees are an opportunity to prevent another wave of Russian aggression,” he said.

“And this is already a compromise on our part.”

Zelenskyy emphasised that any security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the US Congress, adding that he expected an update from his team following a meeting between Ukrainian and US military officials in Stuttgart, Germany.

He said that he would meet separately with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and, possibly, other European leaders later in the evening.

Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia's war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays.

The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.

Tough obstacles remain

Russia's President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace, a demand rejected by Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said the US had floated an idea for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donetsk and create a demilitarised free economic zone there, a proposal he rejected as unworkable.

“I do not consider this fair, because who will manage this economic zone?” he said.

“If we are talking about some buffer zone along the line of contact, if we are talking about some economic zone and we believe that only a police mission should be there and troops should withdraw, then the question is very simple. If Ukrainian troops withdraw 5–10 kilometres, for example, then why do Russian troops not withdraw deeper into the occupied territories by the same distance?”

Zelenskyy described the issue as “very sensitive” and insisted on a freeze along the line of contact, saying that “today a fair possible option is we stand where we stand”.

Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of the Donetsk region even if they become a demilitarised zone under a prospective peace plan.

Ushakov warned that a search for compromise could take a long time, noting that the US proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.