Kiev, Nov 14. (dpa/GNA) – Ukraine continues to reject neutral status, one of Russia’s main demands for ending the war, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.
“If Russian President Vladimir Putin assumes that Ukraine’s neutrality will be enshrined, then this will not happen,” Zelensky said, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
He rejected a constitutional amendment, which would be required for such status. Since Ukraine is not a NATO member, it has no long-range security guarantees, he noted. Zelensky said US negotiators had offered, as an option, NATO membership for his country in exchange for Ukrainian withdrawal from the parts of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass that Kiev still controls.
The Kremlin insists on a complete Ukrainian withdrawal from the Donbass, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
With Western support, Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022.
Moscow says it started the war to prevent its neighbour from joining NATO, and it demands neutral status for Ukraine.
This past week brought a resumption of US-mediated direct talks between the Russians and Ukrainians, which raised hopes of an early end to the war.
However, apart from renewed prisoner exchanges, there appears to have been little progress.
European representatives are set to take part in the next round of talks.
GNA