Zelensky says US floated Ukraine ceding land for NATO membership

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the United States raised the question of Ukraine joining NATO in exchange for withdrawing from the Donbas, and that Kyiv's relationship with the alliance is "back on the agenda".

"This was the first time this had been raised," Zelensky said of the US proposal, in comments released on Saturday. He argued that after the defence support Ukraine has received, Western partners "cannot simply let Ukraine go".

US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met both Vladimir Putin and Zelensky on Thursday, after two days of talks in Abu Dhabi that ended without a breakthrough. The negotiations did produce agreement that European countries would join future talks on ending the war.

In Dublin on Friday, Europe selected five countries to send representatives to those talks: France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Poland.

Zelensky said Kyiv was negotiating "specific" guarantees from Western countries, and that he would ask Ukrainians whether they accept any deal before agreeing to it. He insisted Ukraine would not recognise any land seized by Russian troops as Russian.

The Kremlin has consistently called Ukrainian membership of NATO a red line, and in 2022 launched its invasion saying the West planned to bring Ukraine into the alliance. Meeting the US envoys this week, Putin ruled out foreign peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, and Moscow has throughout the negotiations ruled out wider ceasefires.

Zelensky said Moscow also rejected an energy ceasefire at the Abu Dhabi talks. He described Putin's proposal of a "humanitarian" mission to Kostyantynivka as a ploy to get Kyiv to withdraw from the city and open the road to more settlements in the Donetsk region. "Their next steps will be our other cities in Donbas," he said.

Moscow's chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said the Kremlin's aim was a "new, modern Yalta", a reference to the 1945 conference. Germany's Friedrich Merz answered on Friday: "We do not need to discuss that, it already exists."

Zelensky warned that Moscow's push to redraw influence in Europe was "very dangerous", and said the Kremlin was "betting everything" on this winter's military campaign. Securing a ceasefire, he said, must be a priority in any talks.