Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested he would be ready to agree a ceasefire with Vladimir Putin – but only if one important condition is agreed upon
Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested he would consider a ceasefire in which Ukraine would lose territory to Russia in return for NATO membership.
During campaigning, US president-elect, Donald Trump repeatedly said he would be able to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours and there has been plenty of conjecture over how and whether this would be possible.
And Trump staffers have been widely reported as saying that his plan is to freeze the current front line in place and introduce an 800 mile buffer zone between the two countries.
While another element to the alleged proposal would be an agreement that Ukraine would not join NATO for another 20 years. It has been said that this would save face for Vladimir Putin, not least as it would more or less guarantee that Ukraine doesn’t join NATO in his lifetime.
Up until now Zelensky has said that Ukraine would not accept a deal which would see it ceding terrain to Russia, but now he appears to be considering the possibility of a ceasefire where the rest of the country comes “under the NATO umbrella”. He said NATO membership would need to be offered for the part of Ukraine which is not occupied by Russia.
“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” he told Sky News. “We need to do it fast. And then on the [occupied] territory of Ukraine, Ukraine can get them back in a diplomatic way.”
The Ukraine leader wanted to see a guarantee that if there was a ceasefire, Putin would not later come back and fight for more territory. He added that NATO membership was “very much” needed to stop Putin coming back for more.
Amid fears that Trump would be looking for a quick fix with his priority being domestic issues in the US and cutting spending on Ukraine, Zelensky said he was ready to work with Trump. “We have to try to find the new model. I want to share with him ideas and I want to hear from him,” he said.
Tensions have significantly escalated in recent weeks after Joe Biden authorised Ukraine to use American-supplied long-range missiles to attack targets inside Russia. Storm Shadow missiles supplied to Ukraine by Britain were also reportedly fired into Russia last week.
