Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Friday (November 30, 2024) for N.A.T.O. to offer guaranteed protections to parts of Ukraine controlled by Kyiv in order to “stop the hot stage of the war.”

Mr. Zelensky also implied he would be willing to wait to regain the almost one-fifth of his country that Russia’s army has seized, if such a deal could offer security for the rest of Ukraine and end the fighting.

The comments came amidst escalating tensions in the near three-year war.

Russia has this week threatened to strike government buildings in Kyiv and launched a massive aerial attack on Ukraine’s energy sector — something it called a response to Ukraine firing US and British supplied missiles on Russian territory.

“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under N.A.T.O. umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” Mr. Zelensky told Britain’s Sky News, according to a voiceover translation of his remarks from Ukrainian into English.

“That’s what we need to do fast, and then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically,” he added.

Talk of a possible ceasefire or peace deal has ratched up since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election earlier this month.

The Republican has criticised US aid to Kyiv and claimed he could halt the conflict within hours, without saying how.

Russia controls around 18 percent of Ukraine’s internationally recognised territory, including the Crimean peninsula which Moscow annexed in 2014.

Since invading in 2022, Moscow has claimed four more eastern and southern regions of Ukraine — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia — as its own, despite not having full control over them.

Kyiv has repeatedly ruled out ceding territory in exchange for peace, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded Ukraine’s army withdraw from swathes more land.

Zelensky insisted any offer to join N.A.T.O. must be given to the whole of Ukraine, but his comments about the “N.A.T.O. umbrella” suggest he might accept the alliance’s practical protections, like the Article Five collective defence clause, only be extended to territory controlled by Kyiv.

Such an arrangement would be necessary to ensure Russia does not attack again in the future, he said.

“If we speak ceasefire, [we need] guarantees that Putin will not come back,” Mr. Zelensky said in English.

Putin has previously called on Kyiv to renounce its N.A.T.O. ambitions if it wants a peace deal.

With the conflict escalating on the battlefield, Zelensky has held a string of phone calls with Western leaders in recent days — including Britain’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke to Ukraine’s foreign minister on Friday(November 30, 2024) to brief him on “US goals for sustainable support for Ukraine,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

Joe Biden’s administration has stepped up its support to Kyiv since Mr. Trump won the election, transferring more weapons and giving Ukraine permission to fire long-range missiles onto Russian territory.

That move triggered a furious response in Moscow, with Mr. Putin authorising the firing of a new hypersonic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro and threatening to strike government targets in Kyiv in response.

Mr. Zelensky on Friday appointed a new Land Forces Commander, Mykhailo Drapaty, in a move to bolster army leadership.

Mr. Drapaty previously led forces in the northeastern Kharkiv sector, defending against a surprise new Russian offensive earlier this year.

“These personnel decisions are aimed at strengthening our army, enhancing its combat readiness, and introducing new management approaches,” Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said.