KYIV – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that he's open to the potential deployment of Western troops in Ukraine to guarantee the country’s security as part of a broad effort to end the almost three-year war with Russia.
The deployment would be a step toward Ukraine joining NATO, Zelenskyy said in a post on his Telegram channel.
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“But before that, we must have a clear understanding of when Ukraine will be in the European Union and when Ukraine will be in NATO,” Zelenskyy said.
His proposals tread a delicate diplomatic path amid international efforts to find a way of ending Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II at a time when Russia has gained an upper hand in the fighting.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is seeking to bring about a ceasefire and met with Zelenskyy in Paris on Saturday. But Zelenskyy said Monday that he would approach outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden about Ukraine’s possible NATO membership because he's still in office, while Trump doesn't yet have “legal rights” to decide on the matter.
“He wants to have a cease-fire,” Trump said of Zelenskyy in comments to the New York Post published Sunday. “He wants to make peace. We didn’t talk about the details.”
Putin’s forces are taking heavy losses in Ukraine, Trump noted.
“I’m formulating a concept of how to end that ridiculous war,” he said.
The possibilities of Ukraine joining the 32-nation NATO military alliance and of Western troops being stationed on its soil have been deeply divisive and contentious issues since Russia’s full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022.
At their summit in Washington in July, NATO declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership, but stopped short of inviting the country in. The United States and Germany have balked at Ukraine joining NATO while at war with Russia.
One obstacle has been the view that Ukraine’s borders would need to be clearly demarcated before it could join so that there can be no mistaking where the alliance’s pact of mutual defense would come into effect. Russia’s invading army occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of Western troops on the ground in Ukraine last February. But it raised the same fears of escalation that have led Western leaders to place limits on weapons supplies and permissions for their use.
European military heavyweights Germany and Poland immediately said they wouldn't send troops to Ukraine. Macron declined to provide details about which nations were considering sending troops, saying he preferred to maintain some “strategic ambiguity."
Ukraine’s forces are weathering a monthslong onslaught by Russia centered on the eastern Donetsk region, where Kyiv’s defenses are creaking.
Zelenskyy said on X that over the past week alone, Russia launched nearly 500 powerful guided bombs, more than 400 attack drones and almost 20 missiles of various types against Ukraine.
“Ukraine wants this war to end more than anyone else. No doubt, a diplomatic resolution would save lives. We do seek it,” he said.
Zelenskyy thanked Biden for the latest U.S. military aid of nearly $1 billion. With doubts about whether Trump will keep up U.S. military support, the Biden administration has been trying to spend every dollar remaining from a massive foreign aid bill passed earlier this year to put Ukraine in the strongest position possible.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s challenger in the upcoming German election, Friedrich Merz, said that there’s a “basic consensus” in Germany on continuing to provide military aid to Ukraine.
But during a visit to Kyiv, he also highlighted differences with Scholz, who has refused to send Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine as he insists that everything must be done to prevent a wider war between the West and Russia. Merz has been open to providing them and allowing Ukraine to hit military targets inside Russia.
As he met Zelenskyy, Merz noted that France, the U.K. and the U.S. have a different position from the current German government.
“Our position is clear, as is that of my parliamentary group: we want to put your army in a position to reach military bases in Russia – not the civilian population, not the infrastructure, but the military targets from which your country is being fought,” he said.
“With this range restriction, we are forcing your country to fight with one hand behind its back, and that is not our position,” he added.
Merz’s center-right Union bloc leads German opinion polls. The election is expected on Feb. 23.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine