Ukraine signals NATO U-turn in Berlin: What did Zelenskiy demand after five hours with Trump’s envoys?

Zelenskiy says Ukraine can compromise on NATO if it gets binding security guarantees; US envoy Witkoff says “a lot of progress” as talks resume Monday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has offered to drop Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO in exchange for binding Western security guarantees, as he held five hours of talks with US envoys in Berlin on Sunday aimed at ending the war with Russia, Reuters reported.

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said 'a lot of progress was made' after meeting Zelenskiy along with Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law, though full details were not disclosed. Negotiations are set to continue on Monday, Reuters reported.

What Ukraine is offering and what it wants back

Ahead of the talks, Zelenskiy said Ukraine could compromise on NATO if it receives legally binding security guarantees from the US and Europe, and potentially other partners including Canada and Japan, Reuters reported.

“From the very beginning, Ukraine desired to join NATO, these are real security guarantees,” Zelenskiy said, according to Reuters, adding that such guarantees would be an “opportunity to prevent another Russian invasion”.

Zelenskiy’s adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said Zelenskiy would comment on Monday after the talks conclude, and that officials were considering draft documents. “They went on for more than five hours and ended for today with an agreement to resume tomorrow morning,” Lytvyn told reporters in a WhatsApp chat, Reuters reported.

Why it’s a big shift

Dropping NATO ambitions would mark a sharp change for Ukraine, which has treated membership as a long-term shield against Russian aggression and has that aspiration written into its constitution, Reuters reported.

The offer also aligns with one of Russia’s stated war aims, though Ukraine has so far resisted ceding territory to Moscow.

Russia’s demands and the unresolved land question

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine formally renounce NATO ambitions and withdraw troops from the roughly 10% of Donbas that Kyiv still controls, Reuters reported. Moscow has also said Ukraine must be neutral and that no NATO troops can be stationed in Ukraine.

Russian sources previously told Reuters that Putin wants a written pledge from major Western powers not to expand NATO eastwards, shorthand for ruling out membership for Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

US push, European doubts

The talks were hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who made brief remarks before leaving the two sides to negotiate, a source told Reuters. Other European leaders are due in Germany for talks on Monday.

Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius called it a 'good sign' that the US sent envoys, but warned that Ukraine has bitter experience relying on assurances, pointing to the 1994 agreement under which Kyiv gave up its nuclear arsenal in return for guarantees from the US, Russia and Britain, Reuters reported.

Original context point: Any deal that swaps a formal NATO track for alternative guarantees would put heavy weight on enforcement, because Ukraine’s post-1994 experience has become the cautionary reference point for why “assurances” without hard backstops can fail.