US suggested Ukraine could give up Donbas for NATO membership, Zelenskyy says – POLITICO

The U.S. has floated the idea of Ukraine joining NATO in exchange for withdrawing from its eastern Donbas region as part of negotiations to end the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday.

“The Americans raised a question: ‘What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?’ This was the first time this had been raised,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Friday, a day after he met with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Dublin. 

The Donbas region in Ukraine’s far east borders Russia, and Moscow declared it had annexed the region in 2022 after its full-scale invasion. The vast majority of the region is occupied by Russian troops.