By Guy Birchall
Contributing Writer
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday called for security guarantees backed by the U.S. Congress before any peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow is signed.
Zelenskyy said in a post on X that U.S. security guarantees “will work only after a vote in Congress,” adding that Washington was pushing Ukraine to cede territory before the guarantees were given.
“When you want to get compromises from people who are under attacks and who are not aggressors — what do you give them? They don’t trust anybody. They don’t trust anybody because we had Budapest Memorandum. That was security guarantees. We gave up our nuclear and other weapons. A lot of aircraft — dozens of jets,” he wrote.
“We gave them up and received security guarantees of sovereignty and independence. In the end, we don’t have those weapons, and we don’t have security guarantees. Nobody saved our independence.”
Zelenskyy said this is why “people have to see what the security guarantees will look like.”
He added that the United States was preparing security guarantees, but that Washington wanted a “swap of territories, or something like that,” before the guarantees were made.
“I think — first, security guarantees. Second, we will not give up our territories because we are ready for compromise. What kind of compromise are we ready for? Not for the compromise that gives Russia the opportunity to recover quickly and come again and occupy us. This is an important thing,” he said.
The U.S. State Department and the White House did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Zelenskyy’s comments build on remarks he made in Vilnius, Lithuania, during a trip in January, when he said that a U.S. document laying out security guarantees for Ukraine is ready and only needs to be signed.
“For us, security guarantees are first and foremost guarantees of security from the United States. The document is 100% ready, and we are waiting for our partners to confirm the date and place when we will sign it,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference in Vilnius.
Zelenskyy added that after such a document was signed, it would be “sent for ratification to the U.S. Congress and the Ukrainian parliament.”
He didn’t provide details on the nature of the guarantees provided in the document then, and has not done so since.
His latest remarks come a day ahead of the next round of trilateral peace talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, which are set to begin in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday.
Moscow said on Monday that these discussions would be more wide-ranging than the previous talks held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
“This time, we plan to discuss a broader set of issues, focusing on the key ones related to the territories and other demands. That is why the presence of our chief negotiator, [Vladimir] Medinsky, is required,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media agency TASS.
Territory remains a contentious topic in negotiations.
Russia seized control of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Since starting a new assault in Ukraine in February 2022, Russian forces have made new territorial gains.
At present, Russian forces control about 20% of Ukraine’s pre-2014 territory.
Russia holds most of the Donetsk province but has called on Kyiv to hand over about 20% of the province that Russian forces have thus far failed to capture by force. Kyiv has refused to grant this concession.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the remaining issues to be negotiated pose some of the biggest challenges to ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“The good news is that the issues that need to be confronted to end this war have been narrowed. … The bad news is they’ve been narrowed to the hardest questions to answer, and work remains to be done in that front,” Rubio said.
Rubio noted that while negotiations are still playing out, the United States has continued to apply economic sanctions on Russia.
Ryan Morgan and Joseph Lord contributed to this report.
