US floats Ukraine by ceding land to Russia in exchange for NATO membership, Zelensky says
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Washington had proposed the idea of Ukraine ceding land to Russia in exchange for NATO membership, as efforts to end the war continue.
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“The Americans asked the question: ‘What if Ukraine joined NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?’ This was the first time this issue was raised,” Zelensky told reporters Friday in comments embargoed until Saturday, the AFP news agency reported.
Zelensky added that Ukraine was discussing “specific security guarantees” from NATO and the European Union and that he would ask the Ukrainians if they would accept the conditions if Western countries confirmed.
“I have no right to make this decision on my own,” he said.
This comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin met with US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow earlier this week.
During their meeting, Putin indicated that Russia would not back down from its territorial demands to control parts of Ukraine and rejected the idea of deploying foreign peacekeeping troops in the country.
The US envoys then met with Zelensky in Ireland on Thursday to discuss ongoing diplomatic efforts, with the trio announcing that in the future Europe would have a “voice” in peace negotiations.
“This will allow us to address broader post-war European security arrangements alongside territorial issues between Ukraine and Russia,” Kushner wrote in an article on X.
On Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova appeared to dissuade hopes for such a deal, saying that to her ministry’s knowledge, “the issue was not raised during talks with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow.”
In other comments shared by the ministry on Friday morning, the president’s aide Yuri Ushakov added: “For our part, the position of the Europeans has been stated exhaustively.”
“They are striving by all means to join the negotiations, but, as our president said, they must decide whether they want peace or a continuation of the war,” he said.
Additional sources • AFP
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