Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says US negotiators have asked whether Kyiv would withdraw from the eastern Donbas region in return for NATO membership. He said it was the first time Washington had raised such a trade.
Zelensky spoke to reporters on Friday. His office released the remarks on Saturday 14 November. They follow a week of US-led diplomacy in Abu Dhabi, Moscow and Dublin. If Washington confirms the idea, it would be a marked shift. US officials had previously said Ukrainian membership of the alliance was off the table, according to the BBC. Any such offer would also reach beyond Ukraine. It would tie the war's territorial dispute to the future shape of European security. Russia has said it will not accept another NATO member on its border.
The White House and the US envoys had not publicly commented on Zelensky's account by midday on Saturday.
What Zelensky said
According to a Reuters translation of his remarks, Zelensky quoted the American side as asking: "What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?" He said it was the first time the issue had been raised.
Zelensky said this was why he believed "NATO is back on the agenda". But he cautioned that signals from Russian President Vladimir Putin made it an "extremely difficult" conversation, Reuters reported.
He ruled out legally recognising any occupied Ukrainian land as Russian, the Kyiv Post reported.
The Donbas is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine's industrial east. Russia occupies roughly a fifth of Ukraine, including most of the Donbas, according to the BBC. The part still held by Ukraine is relatively small. Giving it up would still carry symbolic weight. It would amount to accepting the whole region as Russian. Moscow has long demanded that Kyiv hand over the parts of Donbas that Russian forces have not taken in fighting.
Conditions and a possible referendum
Zelensky did not reject the idea outright. He said he would put the question to a national referendum if Ukraine were offered a comprehensive security package. That would have to include security guarantees, a strong and well-funded army, and money for reconstruction. "I have no right to make that decision on my own," he said, according to AFP.
He told reporters that "specifics are needed, which do not exist yet", the Kyiv Post reported. Any package would first need to be confirmed by the United States and Ukraine's NATO allies, he said.
Zelensky said guarantees modelled on NATO's Article 5 were the minimum Ukraine would need in any settlement. Article 5 is the alliance's collective defence clause. Under it, an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. Some partners have suggested bilateral arrangements instead, similar to US commitments to Israel, according to the Kyiv Post. Zelensky was cautious about how reliable such deals would be. He said Denmark and other Nordic countries support Ukraine joining NATO.
He also warned that the Kremlin's push to redraw Europe's security architecture could lead to more wars. "Real security in Europe means the EU and NATO," he said, according to France 24.
Kirill Dmitriev with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, in a file photo dated September 2026. Photo: kremlin.ru / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
A week of shuttle diplomacy
The remarks follow two days of US-mediated talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on 10 and 11 November. They were the first direct negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow in nine months, Euronews and Reuters reported. Rustem Umerov led Ukraine's delegation. The Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky led Russia's. The US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, mediated.
The talks produced an agreement in principle on a large prisoner exchange. There was no breakthrough on a ceasefire or territory. Zelensky said earlier in the week that negotiators had discussed swapping 1,000 prisoners from each side, possibly rising to 1,500. The final number had not been announced, according to AP. Kushner said the two delegations "agreed on many of the principles, but are still apart on some of the ways to accomplish" peace.
On Thursday 12 November, Witkoff and Kushner met Putin in the Kremlin for about two hours, AP reported. They then flew to Dublin to meet Zelensky. He was attending a gathering of more than 40 European countries.
Moscow's position
No Kremlin response to Zelensky's NATO remarks had been reported by midday on Saturday. Russia's publicly stated demands, however, show little sign of movement. Putin told the US envoys that the only dividing line Russia could accept was the state border, according to several outlets. Moscow considers that border to include four Ukrainian regions. It claimed to annex them in 2022 but has never fully controlled them, AP reported.
Putin also said European troops in Ukraine after a ceasefire would be "absolutely unacceptable". He added: "In other words, the war would resume immediately."
Russia says it wants a full peace settlement rather than a ceasefire. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Moscow wants to agree a broad European security framework first. Only then would it address the details of the war, Reuters reported.
There is also disagreement over Europe's role. US negotiators said on Thursday that Putin had agreed to European participation in future talks. On Friday, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Europe must first show it is ready to contribute to the peace process, according to Reuters. The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said the question of European involvement "was not discussed" with Witkoff and Kushner in Moscow, Euronews reported.
What happens next
The prisoner exchange is the most concrete outcome so far. Its size and timing have not been set. Kushner has said European involvement would allow the talks to address "the broader postwar European security arrangements" alongside territorial issues between Ukraine and Russia. Whether Moscow will accept that remains unclear.
Davyd Arakhamia, a member of Ukraine's delegation, said after Abu Dhabi that he hoped for a solution before the new year, according to Euronews. The larger open question is whether Washington will confirm the NATO idea publicly and put specific terms on paper. If it does, Ukraine's NATO allies would then need to back it. Only then could Zelensky put it to Ukrainian voters.
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Featured image: Brussels NATO Headquarters by Ad Meskens, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
