Ukraine is ready to declare neutrality, abandon its drive to join Nato and vow not to develop nuclear weapons if Russia withdraws troops and Kyiv receives security guarantees, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on the eve of a new round of peace talks in Turkey.
Speaking in Russian, Zelensky told a group of Russian independent journalists on Sunday that Kyiv was prepared to meet Moscow on some of its demands on the condition that the changes were put to a referendum and third parties promised to protect Ukraine.
“Security guarantees and neutrality, the non-nuclear status of our state — we’re ready to do that. That’s the most important point [ . . . ] they started the war because of it,” Zelensky said.
Russia’s media censor ordered the four reporters not to publish the interview and vowed to investigate them — even though it had already blocked a site that one of them edits and shut down a TV station formerly run by another.
Zelensky said Ukraine’s main goal was to end the war as quickly as possible and make Russia’s forces withdraw to their positions before Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion on February 24.
Recommended He said he was “99-9 percent sure” the Russian president had thought Ukraine would be waiting for the invasion with
“flowers and smiles” — going so far as to send troops with parade dress for a victory celebration in Kyiv apparently planned for
to hold separate discussions on the
Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the eastern Donbas border region, where more than 14,000 people have died in a slow-burning separatist conflict involving Russian proxies that broke out soon afterward.
“I understand it’s not possible to make Russia completely leave the territory — that’ll lead to world war three,” Zelensky said. “That’s why I’m saying this is a compromise. Go back to where this all started and then we’ll try to solve the difficult Donbas issue.”