Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that US negotiators had raised the idea of Ukraine withdrawing its remaining forces from Donbas in exchange for Nato membership. He said the Americans asked what would happen if Ukraine joined Nato and pulled back from the region, calling it the first time the idea had been put to him.
The timing matters because Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff travelled to Dublin on Thursday to meet him after talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, and the discussion now appears to have moved from broad diplomacy to a possible territorial trade-off. Zelensky said the US proposal made him believe that Nato is back on the agenda, even though US officials had previously said Ukrainian Nato membership was off the table.
He also set out the terms under which he would take any proposal to the public. If it included security guarantees, no constraints on Ukraine's military and funds to rebuild the country, he said he would put it to a referendum. That leaves the core question unresolved: whether Washington is testing an idea or signaling a formal offer.
Russia currently occupies roughly one fifth of Ukrainian territory, including most of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up Donbas. Ukraine still holds the rest, which is why any suggestion of withdrawal cuts into one of the war's most sensitive fronts. Zelensky warned that Putin's signals made the conversation extremely difficult, and Moscow has already pushed for limits on Ukraine's military, territorial concessions and guaranteed neutrality as conditions of peace.
Kyiv has rejected those terms and says it will not give up sovereign territory, arguing that such limits would leave the country exposed to future invasion. There have been small signs the sides can still find common ground, including a temporary ceasefire in the Kherson region last month for evacuations and aid deliveries. But the latest exchange shows how far apart the sides remain, with Donbas once again at the center of a deal Ukraine is not ready to accept on Moscow's terms.
