- Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pushing this week for NATO to invite Ukraine to join its alliance.
- He said on Sunday that NATO’s self-defense pact wouldn’t have to apply to Ukraine’s occupied territory.
- His proposals come amid anticipation that Trump’s incoming team will stall Ukraine’s NATO accession.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that his country could join NATO without the alliance’s collective self-defense agreement applying to its territory occupied by Russia.
That suggestion means that Article 5, which states that an attack on one member state is an attack on all, wouldn’t automatically drag the rest of the alliance into war with Moscow if Ukraine joins.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said that any invitation for Ukraine to join NATO still has to recognize all of its territory as Ukrainian, including areas occupied by Russia.
He said his reason was that NATO/the alliance couldn’t extend an invitation to only a “part of the territory of Ukraine,” per Ukrainian media.
Zelenskyy added that Ukraine “would never accept” an accession plan that says otherwise.
“But we understand that Article 5, when you’re a member of NATO, cannot apply to the entire territory of Ukraine during wartime, as countries are against the risks of being drawn into the war,” he said.
Such a proposal could essentially split Ukraine into two regions as far as NATO is concerned. The region that includes all of Ukraine’s current territory, like Kyiv and Kharkiv, would have to be defended. There would be no obligation for the rest, which is the Ukrainian territory seized by Russia in the east.
Ukraine launched a campaign this week to pressure NATO into extending an invitation to Kyiv, a move the alliance already promised in 2008 would eventually happen. NATO has not provided a specific timeline for when that invitation might be extended.
On Friday, Zelenskyy told Sky News that he would be willing to freeze the front lines if whatever territory Ukraine still holds is placed under the “NATO umbrella.”
“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we should take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” he said at the time.
This indicates that Ukraine would cede its occupied land, at least temporarily, in exchange for a cease-fire with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
It’s a concept that Zelenskyy has adamantly rejected before.
In April, he called a land swap for peace a “very primitive idea.” Discussion of such a plan emerged that month because of reports that President-elect Donald Trump was thinking of championing it. He was still running for president at the time.
Now, the Ukrainian president is recalibrating his conditions for NATO membership. This reconsideration comes as US support for Ukraine sits on the cusp of extreme change. His renewed effort to join the alliance comes amid anticipation that Trump and his advisors would pressure Kyiv into negotiating a quick end to the fighting while withholding membership indefinitely.
There are, however, fears that Russia may renege on a cease-fire — as Putin has done several times in the past — or that such a deal could create a split of Ukraine reminiscent of Cold-War Germany.
Many who want an immediate resolution to the fighting in Ukraine hope that it will relieve the economic strain the war has brought to the globe.
Ukraine is a major supplier of corn and wheat, and while a US-led corridor has allowed it to start selling much of its accumulated stock, its exports are estimated to take several years to hit pre-war levels.
Meanwhile, European reliance on Russian energy has led to a complicated situation, where Ukraine is still allowing Russian gas to transit through its borders to Western customers despite the war.
That arrangement, agreed upon in 2019, is set to expire at the end of the year. Both Moscow and Kyiv have said they’re not ready to renew the contract, though there is talk from Ukraine of extending it.
Several European countries, including Slovakia and Hungary, expressed concern that their energy markets could be skewered by a nonrenewal, though many are starting to replace their gas by buying from the US and Canada instead. Hungary, in particular, hopes a pipeline through Turkey will help to sustain its supply of Russian gas.
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