Zelenskyy Says US Floated Ceding Donbas to Russia in Exchange for Ukraine's NATO Bid

On Saturday, Nov 14, comments were released in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described a question put to him by American envoys that, he said, had never been asked before: if Ukraine were to join NATO, would it pull out of Donbas? He took the question as a sign that his country's relationship with the alliance is, in his words, back on the agenda.

The question came out of a week of diplomacy. US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff held two days of talks with delegations in Abu Dhabi that ended without a breakthrough. On Thursday they met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy separately. Zelenskyy said that after the defence support Ukraine has received, and the strength its army has shown, Washington cannot simply let Ukraine go.

Neither NATO nor Washington has directly commented on his account. Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, posted on X that media had reported maximalist propositions from both sides, along with strong political rhetoric. He said the envoys were determined to keep working, to preserve the confidentiality that sensitive negotiations need, and to find a path to end the war. Several new ideas, he wrote, had emerged and were being explored.

The underlying problem has not moved. Ukraine has long sought NATO membership, and Moscow treats it as a red line. Russia launched its 2022 invasion saying the West planned to bring Ukraine into the alliance. Zelenskyy, for his part, insisted Ukraine will not recognise any land taken by Russian troops as Russian. He said Kyiv is discussing security guarantees with Western partners and that Ukrainians will ultimately decide whether to accept any deal.

On the ground, the pressure continues. Zelenskyy warned that the Kremlin is betting everything on this winter's military campaign, and Moscow has pounded Ukraine in the run-up to the cold months. On Saturday, Russian strikes were deadly in the eastern city of Pavlohrad and in a village near Zaporizhzhia, which now lies just a few dozen kilometres from the front line. Russian troops have inched westwards but have not been able to take the whole of Donetsk region.

Putin this week proposed a humanitarian mission to Kostyantynivka, a town Moscow announced it had seized in the summer but where Kyiv says fighting goes on. Zelenskyy called it a bid to advance Russian gains in Donetsk and said the next targets would be Ukraine's other cities in Donbas. The Kremlin has also ruled out foreign peacekeeping troops in Ukraine and wider ceasefires, while Trump's administration has spent almost two years trying to produce a breakthrough.

Europe is about to have a seat. This week's meetings produced agreement that European countries would join future talks, and in Dublin on Friday Europe picked five to send representatives: France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Poland.

Russia has tried to widen the agenda from ending the war to the continent's overall security. Its chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, called this week for a new, modern Yalta, which drew criticism from European leaders. In 2021, before the invasion, Moscow had issued an ultimatum demanding NATO pull troops back from eastern Europe. Zelenskyy said wider arrangements should be discussed only after the war ends. Germany's Friedrich Merz said Friday there is no need to discuss it because a security architecture already exists. French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday that those who want to ration aid to Ukraine are in effect seeking to force an unjust peace on it, calling that the spirit of defeat and a recipe for another war.

What to watch now is whether Washington or NATO confirms the proposal as Zelenskyy described it, and whether the five European states push for security guarantees before any discussion of territory.