Ukraine joining Nato could end the war, Zelensky says

The Ukrainian president said granting membership to unoccupied parts of the country would deter Russia and allow Kyiv to regain territory diplomatically.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has said granting membership of NATO to parts of Ukraine that are not occupied by Russia could bring about an end to hostilities in the almost three-year war.

Mr Zelensky’s proposal would signal an end to Ukraine’s attempts to win back by force those territories seized by Moscow. “If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” he told Sky News. “We need to do it fast.”

Ukraine could then seek to recover its occupied regions “in a diplomatic way”. Such a deal would also ensure Russia would not “come back” to seize more territory in the future, Mr Zelensky said.

However, he said “no one” had offered Ukraine such a deal.

Mr Zelensky said a membership invitation should also be extended by NATO to those areas of the country controlled by the Kremlin, even if they were not in a position to join the Western military alliance. “The invitation must be given to Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders. You can’t give an invitation to just one part of a country,” he said.

Around a fifth of Ukrainian territory remains under Russian control and Mr Zelensky has previously vowed that Kyiv will never cede land to Moscow. However, there is growing support in Ukraine for a deal to end the war, the largest in Europe since 1945. NATO has said only that Ukraine will become a member at some point, but has given no definite timeline.

Just over 50 per cent of the population would support an end to the fighting that involved some kind of territorial concessions, according to a new Gallup opinion poll. More than 60 per cent also want to see talks begin on freezing the conflict, according to a separate poll by the Social Monitoring Centre in Kyiv.

There is no indication Moscow would accept a deal involving NATO membership for even parts of Ukraine. Putin has said on a number of occasions Russia will cease fighting only if Ukraine agrees to surrender four regions in its east and south, as well as Crimea. He has also said Kyiv must formally renounce its ambitions to join NATO, which he has portrayed as a threat to Russia’s national security.

Donald Trump has pledged to end the war as soon as he takes office in January. Keith Kellogg, a retired US general who is his pick for Ukraine envoy, has indicated the US would halt all weapons supplies to Ukraine unless Kyiv enters ceasefire talks with Russia.

“I want to work with (Trump) directly because there are different voices … around him. And that’s why we need not to (allow) anybody around to destroy our communication,” Mr Zelensky said. “It will be not helpful and will be destructive. We have to try to find the new model. I want to share with him ideas and I want to hear from him.”

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