Donbas For NATO? Zelensky Says Washington Just Floated A Swap That Crosses Putin's Reddest Line

Volodymyr Zelensky says US negotiators asked for the first time whether Ukraine would pull out of Donbas in exchange for NATO membership, a trade that would hand Moscow the land it has demanded for years while putting Kyiv inside the alliance Vladimir Putin calls a red line."The Americans raised the question: 'What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?'" Zelensky told journalists, according to the Kyiv Independent. "This was the first time this issue had been raised."The question came out of two days of US-brokered talks between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10-11, which ended without a breakthrough but with a deal to swap more than 1,000 prisoners, as we reported. Final numbers for the exchange were still under discussion, according to Reuters.Zelensky said Kyiv is not ready to give up territory, but he would put the question to a national referendum if Ukraine got a full package: security guarantees, a strong and funded army, and money to rebuild. "If the American side confirms this to us together with other NATO colleagues, then I will ask the opinion of our society," he said, per the Kyiv Post. "I have no right to make that decision on my own."He drew one line in advance: any deal would come "without any recognition of the occupied territories as Russian." He wants guarantees modeled on NATO's Article 5 "as an absolute minimum," and said Washington told him no US soldiers would deploy to Ukrainian soil."But we need specifics, and we don't have them yet. All of this is still under discussion," Zelensky said. NATO "is back on the agenda," he added, but Putin's signals point to "an extremely difficult conversation."The opening would reverse Washington's line, since US officials had previously said Ukrainian NATO membership was off the table. It also follows a rough stretch between Kyiv and the White House, with Trump pressing Ukraine to pause strikes on Russian oil facilities while his waiver let Russian diesel exports double, and Zelensky complaining again about Starshield disruptions.Putin has long called Ukrainian NATO membership a red line and cited it as one reason for the 2022 invasion. Zelensky made clear he expects no give from Moscow on the map either. "When Putin says something about state borders, it is certainly not about reducing Russia's territory, right?" he said. "Therefore, there is no faith in the comrade in the Kremlin."He also dismissed Putin's offer of a local humanitarian ceasefire in Kostiantynivka, a contested city in the Donetsk region, as proof Russia can't take it by force. "Putin simply wants us to leave Kostiantynivka so that they can move in and occupy the entire city that way," Zelensky said, according to RTE. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner raised an energy ceasefire with Putin in Moscow on Thursday with no reported progress, and Zelensky said "Putin personally does not support a ceasefire."Zelensky met Witkoff and Kushner outside Dublin on Thursday and said the US side told him all parties had agreed Europe would get a seat at the next round, the result Kushner went all in on after Putin aide Yuri Ushakov poured cold water on the idea. EU leaders meeting in Dublin agreed Europe's team would be Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland, plus the bloc's institutions.The NATO question follows a plan Kyiv turned down days earlier. Trump's envoys proposed redrawing the administrative borders of Donetsk and Luhansk along the current front line, which would let Moscow claim all of Donbas without capturing the Ukrainian-held cities it still wants, according to The Telegraph. A Ukrainian source told the paper Kyiv would never recognize it, de facto or de jure.Zelensky has described a US Donbas-for-security link before. In March he told Reuters Washington would finalize security guarantees "once Ukraine is ready to withdraw from Donbas," as we noted. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shot that down two days later: "he knows that's not true."