Zelenskyy offers to drop NATO bid, but rejects US push to cede territory

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signalled on Sunday that Kyiv was prepared to abandon its long-standing ambition of joining NATO if the West offered robust security guarantees, but firmly rejected US suggestions that Ukraine should surrender territory to Russia, as he arrived in Berlin for talks aimed at ending the war.

Zelenskyy reached the German Chancellery ahead of meetings with US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, part of a wider round of discussions in Berlin involving Ukrainian, American and European officials.

Speaking to reporters in audio messages shared via a WhatsApp group ahead of the talks, Zelenskyy said since the United States and several European countries had ruled out Ukraine’s accession to NATO, Kyiv expected alternative assurances comparable to those enjoyed by alliance members.

“These security guarantees are an opportunity to prevent another wave of Russian aggression,” he said. “And this is already a compromise on our part.”

He stressed that any such guarantees would have to be legally binding and backed by the US Congress. Zelenskyy said he was awaiting feedback from his delegation following talks between Ukrainian and American military officials in Stuttgart, Germany.

Later on Sunday, he was also due to hold separate meetings with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and, potentially, other European leaders.

Washington has spent months trying to balance the demands of both sides as Trump pushes for a rapid end to Russia’s invasion and has grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress. Efforts to identify workable compromises, however, have repeatedly stumbled over fundamental disputes, particularly over territory in eastern Ukraine, including the largely Russian-occupied Donetsk region.

One of Moscow’s core demands is that Ukraine pull its forces out of the parts of Donetsk that remain under Kyiv’s control, a condition Zelenskyy has flatly rejected.

He said the United States had floated a proposal under which Ukraine would withdraw from Donetsk and the area would be turned into a demilitarised free economic zone. Zelenskyy dismissed the idea as impractical.

“I do not consider this fair, because who will manage this economic zone?” he said. “If we are talking about some buffer zone along the line of contact, if we are talking about some economic zone and we believe that only a police mission should be there and troops should withdraw, then the question is very simple. If Ukrainian troops withdraw 5–10 km, for example, then why do Russian troops not withdraw deeper into the occupied territories by the same distance?”

Calling the issue “very sensitive”, Zelenskyy said Kyiv favoured freezing the conflict along the current front line. “Today a fair possible option is we stand where we stand,” he said.

Russia’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant that Russian police and National Guard units would remain in parts of Donetsk even if the area were designated a demilitarised zone under a future peace deal.

Ushakov cautioned that reaching any compromise could take considerable time, arguing that US proposals which had initially reflected Russian demands had been “worsened” by changes sought by Ukraine and its European allies.

In comments broadcast on Russian state television on Sunday, he said “the contribution of Ukrainians and Europeans to these documents is unlikely to be constructive,” warning that Moscow would raise “very strong objections”.

He added that territorial issues had been discussed extensively in Moscow earlier this month when Witkoff and Kushner met President Vladimir Putin. “The Americans know and understand our position,” Ushakov said.

Merz, who has emerged as a key European backer of Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said on Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well”.

He warned that Putin was seeking “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders”.

“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz said at a party conference in Munich on Saturday.

Putin has repeatedly denied any intention to revive the Soviet Union or to attack European countries.

Russia and Ukraine exchange aerial attacks

As diplomatic efforts continued, both sides reported fresh aerial assaults overnight. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched ballistic missiles and 138 attack drones, of which 110 were intercepted or shot down. Nevertheless, missile and drone strikes were recorded at six locations.

Zelenskyy said on Sunday that hundreds of thousands of families remained without electricity in southern, eastern and north-eastern regions, with crews still working to restore power, heating and water supplies after a large-scale attack the previous night.

He said Russia had fired more than 1,500 strike drones, nearly 900 guided aerial bombs and 46 missiles of various types at Ukraine over the past week alone.

“Ukraine needs peace on decent terms, and we are ready to work as constructively as possible. These days will be filled with diplomacy. It’s very important that it brings results,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia’s defence ministry, meanwhile, claimed its air defences had shot down 235 Ukrainian drones late on Saturday and early on Sunday. In Russia’s Belgorod region, a drone injured a man and set his house on fire in the village of Yasnye Zori, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Ukrainian drones also struck an oil depot in Uryupinsk in the Volgograd region, causing a fire, according to regional governor Andrei Bocharov.

In the Krasnodar region, authorities said Ukrainian drones attacked the town of Afipsky, home to an oil refinery. Explosions shattered windows in nearby residential buildings, although officials said there was no reported damage to the refinery itself.

With AP/PTI inputs