Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday — the eve of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion — that he was ready to quit as Ukraine’s president if it meant Kyiv would be admitted to the NATO military alliance.
Zelensky, who has faced fierce criticism from the new US administration, said he wanted to meet Donald Trump before the US president meets his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Zelensky has been calling for Ukraine to be given NATO membership as part of any deal to end the war, but the Washington-led alliance has been reluctant to make a pledge.
“If there is peace for Ukraine, if you really need me to leave my post, I am ready. … I can exchange it for NATO,” Zelensky told a Kyiv news conference.
Zelensky and Trump have been engaged in a war of words since US and Russian officials met last week in Saudi Arabia for their first high-level talks in three years. The move undermined the West’s policy of isolating the Kremlin and infuriated Ukrainian and European leaders, excluded from the meeting.
In a series of verbal attacks over the last week, Trump has branded Zelensky a “dictator”, falsely claimed Ukraine “started” the war. He also claimed, contrary to independent opinion polls, that Zelensky was unpopular at home.
Zelensky said he was not “offended” by Trump’s comments and was ready to test his popularity in elections once martial law ends in Ukraine.
“One would be offended by the word ‘dictator,’ if he was a dictator,” Zelensky told journalists.
“I very much want from Trump an understanding of each other,” he said, adding that “security guarantees” from the US president were “much needed”.
The Ukrainian leader also called for Trump to meet with him before any summit with Putin. There had been “progress”, he added, on a deal to give the United States preferential access to Ukraine’s critical resources.
Earlier, the Kremlin hailed dialogue between Trump and Vladimir Putin — whom spokesman Dmitry Peskov called two “extraordinary” presidents — as “promising”.
“It is important that nothing prevents us from realising the political will of the two heads of state,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state TV.
Despite Zelensky’s push for long-term security assistance and Trump talking up a peace deal, it is unclear whether the US moves can bring Moscow and Kyiv closer to a truce.
Peskov ruled out any territorial concessions as part of a settlement and Moscow has repeatedly rejected NATO membership for Ukraine.
“The people decided to join Russia a long time ago,” Peskov said, referring to Moscow-staged votes in eastern Ukraine held amid the offensive and dismissed as bogus by Kyiv, the West and international monitors.
“No one will ever sell off these territories. That’s the most important thing,” he said.
On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a Ukraine peace deal that respects the country’s “territorial integrity.”
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