No one responds to Zelensky’s plan to put Ukraine “under NATO umbrella” while waiting for Trump

The return of Donald Trump to the White House has shaken the board. The possibility of the United States turning off the tap on aid to Ukraine was a fear of the allies and, since the elections, there have been changes in the discourse. The high representative of the EU, Josep Borrell, said goodbye to his position assuming that the future was uncertain regarding aid to kyiv if Washington withdrew its aid and now a negotiating framework seems closer than ever. Even Volodymyr Zelensky has changed his speech by opening up for the first time to a ceasefire on the current battle lines, as long as the territory he dominates remains “under the umbrella of NATO.” And, although part of the proposal comes from Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, no one dares to respond until the president-elect formally assumes power. In any case, Russia sees it as “unacceptable” and a “threatening” proposal.

It was 1,000 days of war and Zelensky pointed out 2025 as “the year of peace” in a speech to the European Parliament. By then the European leadership had already undergone therapy regarding Trump’s victory. All allies were aware that the Republican populist would have a different vision regarding the war in Ukraine. For the moment, he has appointed retired General Keith Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. His plan involves freezing the war on the current battle lines, leaving Ukraine out of NATO, offering more weapons to Ukraine and reducing sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s regime in exchange for a peace agreement.

The allies have always said that it would have to be Ukraine that set the conditions for peace negotiations. And that discourse remains. It has been Zelensky himself who has made a slight change, which to a certain extent is in line with Kellogg’s approach by opening up to a ceasefire with the current occupied territories and subsequently negotiating their return through diplomatic channels, as long as the country remains within the framework of NATO.

“If we want to end the ‘hot phase’ of the war, we need to put the territory of Ukraine that we have under control under the NATO umbrella. We need to do it quickly and then the rest of the (occupied) territory can be recovered through diplomatic channels,” said the Ukrainian leader in an interview with Sky News collected by Agencia EFE. Zelensky’s intention is, therefore, for the Euro-Atlantic alliance to give him security coverage “immediately” in exchange for a ceasefire even without having recovered the territory invaded by Russia.

Nobody dares to speak out on the matter. “I am going to quote Zelensky when, at the end of February 2022, some countries offered him a plane to take him to safety in Poland. And he said: I don’t need a ride, I need ammunition,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has paraphrased: “Ukraine does not need more ideas about what a peace process could be like.” His words came before the inter-ministerial meeting with the heads of the 32 member countries of the alliance in which the war in Ukraine and also in the Middle East was discussed, in this case with the presence of the King of Jordan.

Rutte defends the need for “a good agreement”

“You and I can sit down, have coffee and think about many ways on how to approach a peace process whenever it begins. But I would say let’s not have all these step-by-step discussions about what a peace process could look like. Let’s make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to achieve a position of strength when the peace talks begin, when the Ukrainian government decides that it is ready for it,” Rutte responded to the Sky News journalist who asked him about the possibility that Zelensky himself put it on the table. NATO has been cooling Ukraine’s entry for some time, although it assures that “its future” lies in the alliance. But no one sets a date.

Rutte met with Trump precisely on November 22 in Florida, but he did not want to give many details about that meeting or the possibility of there being a demilitarized zone on the border. What he has taken advantage of is to send a message to the president-elect of the United States about the possibility that succumbing to Russian pressure will mean a victory for his allies, such as China, North Korea or Iran. “If we reach an agreement on Ukraine, it has to be a good agreement, because we cannot have Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping celebrating,” explained Rutte, who assured that this could have a knock-on effect on other countries: “ This is crucial for our defense, not only here in Europe, but also in the US, the Indo-Pacific and the Euro-Atlantic.

For his part, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, avoided commenting on a hypothetical transfer of territories in exchange for security guarantees from NATO. “On the negotiation, on whether Ukraine wants to negotiate or not, only the Ukrainian president and the legitimately and democratically elected Government are entitled to do so,” said the head of diplomacy, who has assured that for the moment it is an exercise of “ political fiction” because a hypothetical peace negotiation is not “on the table.”