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 U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia as he held talks with U.S. envoys on ending the war.
Zelenskyy sat down with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Ukrainian leader posted pictures of the negotiating table with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz sitting next to him facing the U.S. delegation.
Responding to journalists’ questions in audio clips on a WhatsApp group chat before the talks, Zelenskyy said that since the U.S. and some European nations had rejected Ukraine’s push to join NATO, Kyiv expects 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.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for the alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.
Zelenskyy emphasized that any security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress, adding that he expected an update from his team following a meeting between Ukrainian and U.S. military officials in Stuttgart, Germany.
The U.S. government said in a social media post on Witkoff’s account after the five-hour meeting that “a lot of progress was made.”
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
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 that the U.S. had floated an idea for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donetsk and create a demilitarized 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 kilometers, 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 demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan.
Ushakov warned that a search for compromise could take a long time, noting that the U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.
Speaking to Russian state TV in remarks broadcast Sunday, Ushakov said that “the contribution of Ukrainians and Europeans to these documents is unlikely to be constructive,” warning that Moscow will “have very strong objections.”
Ushakov added that the territorial issue was actively discussed in Moscow when Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin earlier this month. “The Americans know and understand our position,” he said.
Zelenskyy said he spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday just before the talks with Trump’s envoys, thanking him on X for his support and adding that “we are coordinating closely and working together for the sake of our shared security.”
Macron vowed on X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”
Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”
He warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”
“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned on Saturday during a party conference in Munich.
Putin has denied plans to restore the Soviet Union or attack any European allies.
