President says for first time that his country could cede land temporarily in exchange for protection of a ‘Nato umbrella’
Credit: Sky News
Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday night that he was willing to cede territory to Russia to end the war for the first time.
The Ukrainian president said his country could give up land temporarily in exchange for a “Nato umbrella” over the territory Ukraine still holds.
He added that after a ceasefire was agreed, Kyiv could “diplomatically” negotiate the return of the territory in the east that is currently under Russian control.
“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under [the] Nato umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” Zelensky said in an interview with Sky News.
“That’s what we need to do fast, and then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically,” he added.
The comments represent a considerable shift in his position. Kyiv has previously said it would continue to fight Russia until Ukraine was returned to its internationally recognised borders, which include the four regions annexed by Vladimir Putin in 2022, as well as Crimea.
The shift comes as Donald Trump prepares to take office with a promise to end the war on “day one”. Meanwhile, support for a peace deal is also growing among European allies.
Under plans floated by Mr Trump’s team, a peace deal would see the current front line frozen in place, and Ukraine agreeing to shelve its ambitions to join Nato for 20 years. If agreed, the US would pump Ukraine with weapons to deter future Russian aggression.
Mr Zelensky hinted in his interview that the “Nato umbrella” would not be full membership of Nato, something Putin has rejected as part of any peace deal.
Rather, it could mean Nato member states, including Britain, the US, France and Germany, providing individual security guarantees to Ukraine.
Asked in the interview whether Kyiv would be willing to give up territory to Moscow altogether in exchange for full Nato membership, he said: “No one has offered us to be in Nato with just one part or another part of Ukraine.”
He added that it “could be possible, but no one offered”.
He later said he would be willing to consider ceding the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine in exchange for the free parts of Ukraine to be brought under the “Nato umbrella”.
The inauguration of the Mr Trump on January 20 is expected to accelerate talks over how to end the war.
Mr Trump is thought to be considering a plan that would call on European and British troops to enforce an 800-mile buffer zone between the Russian and Ukrainian armies as part of a plan to end the war.
Speaking to The Telegraph this week, Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, said that British troops should help defend Ukraine’s border as part of any peace deal.
He said that any responsibility to guard a future ceasefire line between Ukraine and Russia should be given to a multinational group of European peacekeeping forces.
“I don’t think we should be sending in combat troops to take on the Russians,” he told the Telegraph’s Ukraine: The Latest podcast.
“But I think as part of the solution, as part of the end state, you’re going to want to have multinational European peacekeeping forces monitoring the border [and] helping the Ukrainians.
“I cannot see that such a European operation could possibly happen without the British.”
Mr Johnson said Western countries should make clear what security guarantees would be offered to Ukraine as part of any peace deal, to ensure Russia could not simply re-arm and attack again after a few years.
Mr Zelensky switched to English in the latter part of his interview and suggested that other countries had unofficially proposed a ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
“A lot of different countries proposed a ceasefire,” he said. “The question is, ceasefire where?”
He went on to say that if a ceasefire was agreed, it must guarantee “that Putin will not come back”.
“We need [Nato protection] very much, otherwise [Putin] will come back. Otherwise, how are we going to go to a ceasefire? So for us, it’s very dangerous.”
No nation in history has suffered more than Ukraine.
Now it’s beginning to look like victory for the devil and his disciples.
Pure, concentrated evil is about to be rewarded.
This is absolutely abysmal and shameful.
The total failure of Biden and all the allies to ensure victory for Ukraine and now a pending kremlin-friendly WH has forced him into conceding 20% of his territory.
Zel already knows that Nato are keeping him out and must now rely on: what exactly?
Will the UK, France, Germany and Poland provide the same security as Nato? I suspect not; it might be some sort of Budapest-type fudge.
Who gets the enormous mineral reserves underneath putinaZi-occupied territory?
That’s right; another victory for genocide.
Even this pitiful outcome depends on the “goodwill” of putler; a liar, mass-murderer, torturer and thief.
Don’t forget also the rat wants Zaporizhzhya, Kherson and Dnipro. Now that is beyond the pale. Not one more city, town or village must be given to these monsters.
Sanctions must increase and continue for at least another 100 years.
What else could he do? Wait until the front collapses completely? Had the West been more honest a decade ago Ukraine may have surrendered the occupied territories as of 2015. Now 100k people are dead or crippled, the infrastructure is in ruins, and the deal worse than anything anybody could have imagined. Ukraine was not defeated by ruSSia – Ukraine was defeated by Nato.
Selected DT readers’ comments:
Gert Rasmussen
So allow psychopathic thugs to simply invade, murder, maim, claim territory, destroy and devastate a sovereign country without consequences?
Wonder what message that sends to other psychopathic thugs!
Seems Israel is the only civilised Democracy with a backbone and an understanding of psychopathic thug management.
simon lobas
Get the land back diplomatically!! I should coco! They won’t be getting that back in a rush. The west will start buying Russian gas again, build up economy, re-arm, go again.
This guy thinks that trump and musk want to help Ukraine:
Barry Guevara
Elon Musk October 3, 2022
“Ukraine-Russia Peace:
Re-do elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people.
Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).
Water supply to Crimea assured.
Ukraine remains neutral.”
Putting aside the fact that Putin is a thuggish tyrant who invaded a sovereign country, what’s the betting that the peace plan will be similar to the above? How many lives could have been saved if a few heads were banged together in 2022?
I really hope for peace and a prosperous Ukraine. Thankfully Trump is back in a few weeks.
Chris Brooks
Good deal, mate. Whatever other shortcomings you may have it is a hard decision to take when a monster like Putin has eaten great chunks of your country. That’s not an easy one.
Perhaps that will be enough for Trump to hold Putin back?
We’ll find out soon enough.
john readyhoff
Zelenski sounds like a loser and is ready to capitulate.
Our Western naive politicians must be ashemed of their actions and the responsibility for the thousands of deaths and destruction.
The lesson to be learned is If you want to beat Putin then support whats required to win not drip feed a nation with its hands tied or don’t get involved in war.
Fillius Flog
Watch ‘Corridors of Power” and see how genocide has followed many US Presidents failure to intervene at the right time in the right place.
Ukraine and the West will be doomed if they allow Ukraine to be thrown under Putin’s bus.
Give him a hint of victory and he’ll never stop.
Simon Reeve
Ukraine will get all of it’s territory back the same way it did in 1991– When the corrupt authoritarian regime in Mosco implodes again.
Vladolf Putler will fall, keep the pressure on and it’s certain– only appeasement can save him. 😒
Paul Carlin
And the cost of putin’s appalling war against Ukraine? Every single cent must be paid by russia to return normalcy, and to compensate for the death and destruction it has caused. Every single cent.
John Cawley
The Azovstal Steel Works in Mariupal is the land grab Putin desires to establish a manufacturing base to make a fleet of aircraft carriers. Currently the US have 11, China have 2 and building more. Russia have one. Military strength on the high seas will play a big factor in the future. If you want a more stable future Russia must not be allowed this land.
……..
This article has been swamped with anti-Ukraine hatred and gloating from vile trolls with newly-opened comment accounts. Here is just one, to give you the poisonous flavour:
Stephen Gibbs
Russia should seize their victory in sight, refuse the soft cease fire, smash Ukraine, and ensure the break up of that Nazi state amongst its neighbours. And despite the narrative of the west this is the best outcome for Britain and Europe.
Paul Anderson Reply to Stephen Gibbs If not a Russian bot then you are an apologist for a venal and depraved regime that that Russia and the world would be a better place without.
If that happens, then the all vicious dictators and terrorists across the globe will jump with glee. They will have been taught a valuable lesson, actually, several lessons: The West is weak. The West is a coward. The West is greedy. And the West can be defeated. That’s because we have plain idiots in power and even the people in the West are largely made up of idiots, seeing the idiots they vote into office.
Fighting evil in this world has turned out to be a fantasy, seeing the reality of humanity’s idiocy. We are damned to live in a new, colder world order, repeating bad mistakes from the past. We’ve learned nothing from the appeasement of Adolf Hitler. The end result was WWII, with at least 70,000,000 deaths and untold destruction.
How will this appeasement end?
We know that US-Ukraine aid is coming to an end because DT and DT Jr have said so. Repeatedly.
So that’s just a fact. A very unpleasant one, but a fact nonetheless.
We know what “peace” will look like because Kellogg, RFK Jr, DT Jr, Vance, Colby and Musk have put it in writing.
All variations on the same theme : putler wins and is rewarded for savagery and indescribable evil.
The only silver lining to what these shit nuggets want is the FACT that politicians are notorious liars. Thus, what they are saying (or writing) doesn’t mean that they will follow through with it. And, the Trumpet is basically immune to what others on his team are saying or what they want. In the end, it’s he who decides.
To repeat a comment I made on the interview with Seb Gorka:
“They do have some Russians on their soil because it’s not an ethnically homogenous nation.”
Here he conveniently neglects to mention that the ethnic Russians are there because they were planted there by the conquerors to consolidate their gains. The same reason why there are so many in Crimea too. Until the early 1920’s, the majority of Crimeans were Tatars, followed by Ukrainians.
Isn’t it amazing to observe how different the maga attitude to Israel is compared to their attitude towards Ukraine? To the former, they are absolutely staunch and 100% reliable allies. To the latter, it varies from supportive (but not from inside the trump team), to indifferent, to out-and-out hostile, eg DT Jr, RFK Jr, Musk, Gabbard, Rammaswamy, Vance etc.
Israel has a population of almost 10 million. 21% of those are Arabs. The magas would not dream of giving Israeli land to Arabs, so why are they so keen to give Ukrainian land to putinaZi Russia?
“…why are they so keen to give Ukrainian land to putinaZi Russia?”
To answer your question, which you already know, because they are deeply influenced by mafia land, either through money or kompromat. This should be obvious to anyone with even half a brain.