Zelenskyy says US raised Donbas withdrawal for NATO membership

Latest. US envoy Jared Kushner told reporters on Saturday that he and Steve Witkoff are working on the next steps in the Ukraine peace talks, including facilitating direct engagement between Europe and Moscow, and that both sides know compromises will be necessary to end the war. European leaders agreed on Friday to send representatives of five countries, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Poland, to represent the bloc at future talks, the same five that took part in recent Berlin discussions on security guarantees for Ukraine. The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia is ready to hold a separate negotiation with European states but wants clarification of the format and purpose first, and French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that the bloc must state its red lines and objectives in any peace deal with Moscow. No date, venue or agreed format for direct Europe to Russia talks has been announced.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said US envoys at the trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi asked what would happen if Ukraine joined NATO and whether Ukraine would then withdraw from Donbas, a formulation he said was raised for the first time. He repeated that Ukraine does not withdraw and does not cede its territory, but said he listened to the proposal, and that any such decision would need specific NATO and EU security guarantee details that are not yet available and the opinion of Ukrainian society, which he said he has no right to decide alone. He also rejected, in any circumstances, writing a neutral status for Ukraine into its constitution, as Moscow demands. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held the Abu Dhabi meetings this week, then met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow before travelling to Dublin to meet Zelenskyy ahead of the European summit.