Key facts
- Zelensky said the US question was whether Ukraine would leave the Donbas if it joined NATO.
- Zelensky said he would put any proposal with security guarantees and reconstruction funds to a referendum.
- Russia occupies roughly a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including most of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
- Zelensky said the US proposal made him believe NATO is back on the agenda.
- The White House and US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US negotiators have raised the idea of Ukraine withdrawing its remaining forces from the eastern Donbas region in exchange for NATO membership, Volodymyr Zelensky said on November 13, 2026. Speaking to reporters, the Ukrainian president said the question had not been put to Kyiv before.
"The Americans raised a question: 'What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?' This was the first time this had been raised," Zelensky said. He said that if a proposal contained security guarantees, no constraints on Ukraine's military and funds to rebuild the country, he would put it to a referendum.
The comments followed a round of diplomacy. US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met Putin in Moscow on November 11 and Zelensky in Dublin on November 12, according to the report.
Zelensky said the US proposal made him believe "NATO is back on the agenda", but cautioned that Putin's signals made the conversation extremely difficult. US officials had previously said Ukrainian NATO membership was off the table.
Kyiv has long sought NATO membership as a condition of any peace deal, while Russia has said another NATO member on its border was unacceptable. Moscow has proposed limits on the size of Ukraine's military, territorial concessions and guaranteed neutrality; Ukraine has rejected those terms.
Russia occupies roughly a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including most of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas. Ceding the parts Ukraine still controls there would be a small concession in practical terms but symbolically significant for Kyiv, the report said.