Negotiators in Abu Dhabi floated that exact question this week, marking the first time international mediators explicitly linked territorial concessions in eastern Ukraine to the country’s aspirations of joining the Western military alliance.
The proposal was made during the two days of negotiations that ended on Wednesday, according to the Spanish news agency EFE.
The diplomatic pivot emerged following intense, closed-door peace talks that brought together representatives from Ukraine, Russia, and the United States. While Washington’s envoys pressed on whether Kyiv would pull its forces out of the contested Donbas region — which encompasses parts of Donetsk and Lugansk currently under Ukrainian control — the roadmap forward remains fractured.
Russia has long demanded the full annexation of those eastern territories as a foundational condition for ending the grinding conflict. Separatist factions in Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence back in 2022 with direct support from Moscow, following years of simmering warfare that began with the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 after those security guarantees were refused, triggering a war that has already caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, though the exact toll remains unknown. Even so, the conflict is considered the deadliest in Europe since World War II (1939–1945).
The Question of Territory and Referendums
Zelenskyy firmly rejected any unilateral surrender of Ukrainian land to Moscow. “I have said it repeatedly: Ukraine does not withdraw and does not cede its territory to terrorists,” he said, in remarks distributed by the Ukrainian state agency Ukrinform.
Yet, the Ukrainian leader stopped short of slamming the door on a broader negotiated settlement that ties security guarantees to territorial adjustments. He emphasized that any definitive choice regarding land and alliance membership must ultimately rest with the public.
If Western partners deliver binding security guarantees, “then I will ask Ukrainian society what it thinks about the matter,” Zelenskyy told reporters. “Do we accept it or not? I don’t have the right to make that decision alone,” he said.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova appeared to dampen hopes for such an agreement on Friday, stating that as far as her department knows, “the question was not discussed during the talks with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow.” Euronews reported that Putin signaled zero flexibility on territorial demands and rejected the deployment of foreign peacekeepers on the ground.
Following those talks, the American delegation met with Zelenskyy in Ireland to coordinate diplomatic efforts. Jared Kushner noted on the platform X that future peace talks will integrate a structured European voice to handle broader regional security architecture alongside bilateral territorial disputes.
The European team for potential peace negotiations is expected to integrate five of the continent’s major military powers — the United Kingdom, which does not belong to the EU, along with France, Germany, Italy, and Poland — in addition to representatives of European institutions.
Diverging Visions in European Security
Moscow continues to oppose any eastward expansion of the alliance, demanding that NATO return to its pre-1997 borders by removing military infrastructure from nations like Poland and the Baltic states. Russian Foreign Ministry officials, including spokesperson Maria Zakharova and presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov, have repeatedly questioned whether European capitals genuinely want peace or an escalation of hostilities. Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians during the course of the war.
Público said that while the Abu Dhabi talks yielded no immediate breakthrough on the war’s core issues, the warring sides did agree on a major prisoner swap involving more than one thousand detainees.
| Key Actor | Stated Position on Donbas | Stated Position on NATO |
|---|---|---|
| Ukraine (Kyiv) | Refuses unilateral withdrawal; open to public referendum if robust security guarantees are met. | Maintains constitutional goal of alliance membership as a core security pillar. |
| Russia (Moscow) | Demands full annexation of Donetsk and Lugansk regions. | Demands a permanent legal block on membership and rollbacks to pre-1997 alliance borders. |
| United States (Envoys) | Mediating potential compromises linking eastern withdrawals to security guarantees. | Proposing conditional pathways tying territorial concessions to alliance integration. |
Zelenskyy also rejected Putin’s proposal for a localized humanitarian ceasefire in Kostiantynivka, a heavily contested city in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk in the country’s east, stating that the initiative reflected Moscow’s inability to capture the city by force. “This war has to end first,” he said. As diplomatic channels grind forward, Ukrainian officials maintain that European integration and alliance protections remain the only viable shield against future aggression.
