SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS) – The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, mentioned during an interview last Friday (29) the possibility of temporarily renouncing territories occupied by Russia in exchange for an invitation to join NATO, a military alliance Westerner who supports Kiev in the conflict.
The proposal attempts to guarantee some future security for the country in a negotiation that does not involve disputed territories.
In an interview with Sky News, a broadcaster based in the United Kingdom, Zelenski said that the plan is based on the assumption that the invitation to join NATO should be extended to the entire internationally recognized territory, not just a percentage of it. Since Ukraine could not recognize any portion of its soil as Russian, Zelensky would cede the parts of the country claimed by Moscow for membership to apply only to what is controlled by Kiev.
“It is a solution to stop the hot phase of the war, because we can simply give NATO membership only to the part of Ukraine that is under our control,” he said. “Then Ukraine will be able to recover the other part of its territory through diplomatic channels.”
The statement represents a shift in Ukrainian rhetoric. The Eastern European country does not usually leave the door open to a deal that involves the loss of territory to Moscow, which currently controls around 18% of Ukraine. After annexing the Crimean peninsula in 2014, Russia annexed the regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia in the current war, although it does not completely dominate them. None of the achievements are recognized internationally.
According to Zelensky, this commitment would guarantee that Russia would not attack its territory again. The idea would not please Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, on the one hand, demands the withdrawal of Ukrainians from the territories that Moscow claims to be annexed, on the other, opposes the former Soviet republic’s entry into NATO.
On the same day as the interview, the Reuters news agency said it had seen a letter in which Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sibiha asked his NATO colleagues to issue an invitation to Kiev during a meeting in Brussels next week.
The text reflects Ukraine’s new effort to secure membership in the group – part of a “Victory Plan” presented last October by Zelensky.
In the letter, Ukraine says it accepts its refusal to join the alliance until the war ends, but argues that an invitation at this time would show Putin that he could not achieve one of his main goals – preventing Kiev from becoming a member of NATO.
“The invitation should not be seen as an escalation,” Sibiha wrote in the letter. “On the contrary, with the clear understanding that Ukraine’s membership in NATO is inevitable, Russia will lose one of its main arguments for continuing this unjustified war.”
The change in tone comes after Donald Trump won the United States presidential election in early November. Critical of Washington’s billion-dollar aid to Kiev, the Republican said during the campaign that he could end the conflict in a few hours, although he did not say how he would do this.
