Ukraine will abandon its goal of joining the NATO military alliance in exchange for Western security guarantees as a compromise to end the war with Russia. This was announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, when the peace talks started in Berlin, Reuters reports.
Zelensky announced the concession on his way to the German capital, where he began meeting with US President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Wittkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner as part of efforts to end Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Ukraine will abandon its goal of joining the NATO military alliance in exchange for Western security guarantees as a compromise to end the war with Russia. This was announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, when the peace talks started in Berlin, Reuters reports.
Zelensky announced the concession on his way to the German capital, where he began meeting with US President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Wittkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner as part of efforts to end Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Zelensky met with US representatives in the negotiations organized by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. According to the source, Mertz made brief observations before leaving the parties separately for negotiations. Other European leaders are also due to arrive in Germany on Monday for talks. Instead of joining NATO, security guarantees from the United States, Europe and other partners are compromised by Ukraine, Zelensky stated before Sunday's discussions.
"From the beginning, Ukraine wanted to join NATO, these are real security guarantees. Some partners of the USA and Europe did not support that direction," he said, answering journalists' questions in a WhatsApp conversation. "Thus, today bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the USA, Article 5-like guarantees from the USA for us and security guarantees from our European partners, as well as other countries - Canada, Japan - are an opportunity to prevent another Russian invasion. And that is already a compromise on our part," he said, adding that security guarantees should be legally binding.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine formally abandon its NATO-related ambitions and withdraw its troops from about 10 percent of the Donbas territory, which is still controlled by Kiev. Moscow has also stated that Ukraine must be a neutral country and that no NATO troops can be stationed in Ukraine.
