{"id":233582,"date":"2025-12-15T06:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T06:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/233582\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T06:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T06:57:08","slug":"zelenskiy-ready-to-give-up-nato-membership-demands-in-exchange-for-security-guarantees-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/233582\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelenskiy ready to give up Nato membership demands in exchange for security guarantees \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian<\/a> president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> has said he is ready to give up on demands for Nato<\/a> membership in exchange for security guarantees from the United States<\/a> and Europe<\/a>, in a move aimed at advancing peace talks in Berlin. <\/p>\n

US president Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner have pushed Ukraine to accept painful concessions, including ceding frontline territory to Russia, ahead of talks with Zelenskiy and Ukraine\u2019s European allies on the White House plan to end Russia\u2019s invasion. <\/p>\n

Ukraine has admitted that it was unlikely to join Nato in the foreseeable future due to strong opposition from Russia, which has long demanded that the transatlantic alliance pledge to halt its eastward expansion as a condition for ending the war. <\/p>\n

But Zelenskiy told reporters on Sunday that Ukraine still requires security guarantees from the US and Europe, similar to Nato\u2019s Article 5 clause of mutual protection for any member under attack. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are talking about bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the United States \u2013 namely, Article 5-like guarantees … as well as security guarantees for us from our European partners and from other countries such as Canada, Japan and others,\u201d Zelenskiy told journalist. \u201cAnd this is already a compromise on our part.\u201d <\/p>\n

Zelenskiy said Ukraine had yet to receive a response from Washington to revised proposals sent from Kyiv after consultations with European leaders. \u201cThe plan will certainly not be one that everyone likes. There are many compromises in one or another version of the plan,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0EU bypasses Orban veto on plan to fund Ukraine loan using frozen Russian assetsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Russia has said it would probably reject all the proposals from Ukraine and Europe, throwing doubt on whether Trump\u2019s push to end the nearly four-year war could succeed. Yuri Ushakov, Russian president Vladimir Putin<\/a>\u2019s foreign policy adviser, said any Ukrainian and European suggestions for the plan were \u201cunlikely to be constructive\u201d and Russia would have \u201csharp objections\u201d if the US adopted them. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like there\u2019s going to be anything good there,\u201d Ushakov said in comments broadcast on state television on Sunday. <\/p>\n

Both sides appeared to reject Trump\u2019s proposal that all troops be withdrawn from the Donbas region to create a \u201cfree economic zone\u201d in parts of eastern Ukraine now held by Kyiv. The proposal would require Ukraine to withdraw from the \u201cfortress belt\u201d of cities that Moscow\u2019s forces have failed to capture in more than 11 years of war. <\/p>\n

Zelenskiy said on Sunday he did \u201cnot consider this fair\u201d. \u201cIf Ukrainian troops withdraw five to 10 kilometres, for example, then why should Russian troops not also withdraw deeper into the occupied territories by the same distance?\u201d he asked. \u201cThis is a question to which there is still no answer, but it is extremely sensitive and very heated.\u201d <\/p>\n

Zelenskiy said the \u201conly fair and possible option\u201d for a true peace is that \u201cthe sides stop where they are, and then try to resolve all broader issues through diplomacy\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe stand where we stand,\u201d he added. \u201cThat is precisely a ceasefire.\u201d Ushakov also seemed to oppose the demilitarised zone plan, saying this week that Russia would only accept full control over the Donbas. Russia, he added, has not discussed a \u201cKorean scenario\u201d, which could involve freezing the current frontline, with the US. <\/p>\n

Ushakov also rejected Zelenskiy\u2019s earlier suggestions that Ukraine could regain control of Crimea, which Putin annexed in 2014, or join Nato. Both proposals \u201cone million per cent won\u2019t happen\u201d, Ushakov said. <\/p>\n

German chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> is hosting talks with Zelenskiy, Witkoff and Kushner at the federal chancellery on Sunday. Europe is pushing to regain influence over the Ukraine talks, from which the bloc has largely been sidelined despite their far-reaching consequences for the continent. In a speech in Bavaria on Saturday, Merz compared Putin\u2019s war in Ukraine to Adolf Hitler\u2019s annexation of Czechoslovakia\u2019s German-speaking border regions in 1938, to which western allies failed to react. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine is a war against Europe. And if Ukraine falls, it won\u2019t stop, just as the Sudetenland was not enough in 1938. Putin won\u2019t stop,\u201d Merz said. \u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he is ready to give up on demands for Nato membership in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,2219,13,14,6622,6,11,12,15,16,5,4897,550,7,8,2264,384,2263,2267,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-233582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-european-union","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-friedrich-merz","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organisation-nato","21":"tag-russia","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-ukraine-crisis","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-vladimir-putin","27":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","28":"tag-world","29":"tag-world-news","30":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115722285488605237","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}