US proposes NATO path for Ukraine if it cedes all of Donbas
The Trump administration has floated NATO membership for Ukraine if Kyiv surrenders all of the eastern Donbas region, a demand Russian President Vladimir Putin has set as a condition for ending the war. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the idea was put to him by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during US-mediated Ukraine–Russia talks in Abu Dhabi last week. After that round, the pair met Putin in Moscow on Thursday, then briefed Zelenskyy in Dublin ahead of a Friday meeting of European leaders there.
On Saturday Zelenskyy told reporters the Americans had asked whether Ukraine would withdraw from Donbas if it joined NATO. Ukraine applied in September 2022, months after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Moscow has long treated Kyiv’s accession as a red line and has warned of a “harsh response”; Putin has also demanded that NATO pull troops back from countries bordering Russia. Zelenskyy called such pressure dangerous, arguing it leads to wars or escalations, and said real European security rests on the European Union and NATO.
Ian Lesser of the German Marshall Fund of the United States said the pitch, if accurate, states plainly an idea already circulating in Washington: territorial concessions in exchange for a settlement. He judged the NATO piece attractive to Ukraine but hard for Moscow to accept, with some NATO members likely sceptical too. Chris Featherstone of the University of York called it a sharp break from earlier caution, including the Biden administration’s military aid without Western troops on the ground, and from Trump’s past clashes with Zelenskyy and criticism of NATO. Membership in a settlement could deter a future Russian attack, he said, yet Trump might struggle to bring other allies along. NATO remains divided while the war continues; Lithuania and Poland have been among the most eager backers, while others have tied faster accession to an end to the fighting and to concerns about corruption in Ukraine.
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