The United States suggested that Ukraine give up territory in Donbas in exchange for security similar to NATO’s. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this in an interview with DR Nyheder, excerpts of which were published by the presidential press service.
He noted that Vladimir Putin had spoken of an intention to occupy Donbas, but instead decided to seize Kyiv. He claimed he was protecting Russian-speaking people, yet his army tortured and killed thousands of people in Ukrainian cities.
“That is why, when the Americans asked: ‘Can you trade Donbas for security?’, I immediately replied: ‘Can you tell me what that means? What security? NATO?’ ‘Not NATO, but something similar to NATO.’ ‘Similar? But you don’t want the answer on Donbas to be “similar”. You want a clear answer on Donbas. That is your goal. And that is Putin’s goal today. What will you do if we have security guarantees, but not NATO?’” he said.
Zelenskyy believes the quickest way to end the war is a ceasefire along the current lines.
“And here it is very important what we decided: we stop where we are, we cease fire and move to the diplomatic track. This can last a month, two months or a year. Or even longer than we expect today. But we end the hot phase of the war, and people stop dying. When you hold positions, you are talking about a line of contact, you slow the pace of mobilisation, the economy starts working. You negotiate. Dialogue is better than weapons. That is why the best way to end this war is to replace weapons with words. Of course, you will have thousands of questions. How do we stop? Where do we stand? What is the mandate of the monitoring mission? What is demilitarised? What does it mean? What do we need for this? Europeans. Reconstruction. Where do we get the money? Thousands of questions, but it is precisely this format that makes it possible to stop the war — a ceasefire. If Putin does not want a ceasefire and says: ‘No, I want a long plan with different issues — complex, sensitive and not so sensitive. And then, when we sign this long plan, we will stop the war’, it simply means he does not want to stop the war,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
- The interview was published against the backdrop of the first in-person trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States since winter.
- During previous rounds, the sides discussed an action plan to end the war. No consensus was reached on territorial issues, as Russia demanded that the entire Donbas be handed over to it, including its free part. Kyiv was ready to begin talks on the current lines, while the United States proposed a demilitarised zone, which would have meant withdrawing Ukrainian troops from there and an unclear status for that territory.