U.S. proposes Ukraine cede territory in exchange for joining NATO: Zelensky

The United States suggested for the first time that Ukraine cede land to Russia in exchange for joining NATO, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in comments released on Saturday (November 14, 2026). He added that Russia had rejected an energy target ceasefire at talks this week.

Mr. Zelensky said Russia was “betting everything” on this winter’s campaign in its war with Ukraine, while warning that the Kremlin’s demands to redraw Europe’s security architecture were “dangerous” and could lead to more wars.

Mr. Zelensky spoke to the media on Friday (November 13, 2026), after visits to Denmark and Ireland, where he met European leaders following two days of U.S.-brokered Ukraine-Russia talks in Abu Dhabi. The talks ended with no breakthrough in Europe’s worst war since the Second World War, but all sides agreed that European officials should be included in future negotiations.

“The Americans raised a question: ‘What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?’ This was the first time this had been raised,” Mr. Zelensky said, in comments kept under embargo until Saturday. He said Ukraine was discussing “specific security guarantees from NATO and the EU”, and that if Western countries confirmed them, “then I will ask our Ukrainian society what it thinks: do we accept it or not?

I have no right to make that decision on my own.” U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff attended the Abu Dhabi talks, and then met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Zelensky separately. Moscow turned down a proposal for a ceasefire in attacks on energy targets at the Abu Dhabi talks, Mr.

Zelensky said. “On the proposal for an energy ceasefire: the Russians don’t want it,” he said. He said Mr. Putin’s proposal for a “humanitarian mission” to Kostiantynivka was a ploy to get Kyiv to withdraw from the embattled city and open the road to more settlements in the Donetsk region.

“Putin simply wants us to leave Kostiantynivka so that they can move in and occupy the entire city that way,” he said. Russia said this year that it had seized the town, but Ukraine has said fighting is continuing. Moscow’s troops have inched westwards since launching the invasion in February 2022, but have been unable to seize the whole of the Donetsk region.

Mr. Zelensky said the EU and NATO are Europe’s “only real security”, and that Moscow’s bid to review the continent’s security was “dangerous because... it is precisely things like this that lead to wars or escalations.”