The United States has proposed that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the eastern Donbas region in return for NATO membership, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said. He said US mediators raised the idea. The United States has not confirmed his account. A US official said both sides would have to agree to any final deal. The BBC reported the news online.
The proposal is part of a US effort to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Zelensky made the remarks after US envoys met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky himself. Ukraine has long sought membership of the military alliance, but the United States and other countries have opposed it in the past. Russia, for its part, refuses to accept another NATO member on its border. Russia has controlled most of the industrial Donbas region since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
In remarks on Saturday, Zelensky said the Americans had asked whether Ukraine would pull out of Donbas if it joined NATO. He added that if he received a concrete offer, including security guarantees and money to rebuild the country, he would put the question to a referendum. US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met Zelensky in Dublin on Thursday after a round of talks with Putin in Moscow.
Comments from Kremlin officials suggest Russia’s position on the war has not changed. Moscow earlier demanded, as conditions for a peace deal, that Ukraine limit the size of its armed forces and give up territory. Ukraine rejected those terms. Zelensky said the US mediators believe Kyiv will simply have to cede territory to achieve peace.
After Zelensky’s remarks, Jared Kushner called for confidentiality in what he described as a sensitive process. Private talks are under way to explore new ideas for ending a terrible war, he said. Russia currently occupies about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and says it will not agree to a ceasefire until a final peace deal is reached. Relations between Kyiv and Washington have meanwhile worsened over Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities inside Russia. Zelensky has previously said he is willing to hold elections within a few months of a peace deal and would step down as president in exchange for NATO membership.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report