MADRID — US negotiators have raised the idea of Ukraine withdrawing its remaining forces from the eastern Donbas region in exchange for Nato membership, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, disclosing a proposal that would mark a dramatic shift in Kyiv’s long-held red lines on territorial integrity.
The US has not confirmed Zelensky’s account. A US official told the BBC that “many ideas continue to be discussed but any final deal will have to be agreed to by both parties.” The Ukrainian leader’s remarks, released by his office on Saturday, followed a diplomatic push in which US envoys met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow before travelling to Dublin on Thursday to brief Zelensky.
“The Americans raised a question: ‘What if Ukraine joins Nato? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?’ This was the first time this had been raised,” Zelensky said. Russia controls most of the industrial Donbas region and launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Kyiv has consistently insisted it will not surrender sovereign territory.
Nato membership has been a longstanding Ukrainian ambition, but the alliance’s own members — Washington among them — have previously resisted it, while Moscow has declared that another Nato member on its border is unacceptable. Zelensky indicated he would submit any concrete proposal to a national referendum, but only if it carried binding security guarantees, imposed no limits on Ukraine’s military and included funding for reconstruction.
The disclosure comes as Washington intensifies efforts to broker an end to the war, with envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff shuttling between Moscow and Kyiv’s partners. The Kremlin has not commented publicly on the reported proposal, and no formal offer has been presented. For now, the idea remains one of “many” under discussion — but its emergence in public marks the most explicit suggestion yet that territorial concessions could form part of a negotiated settlement.
