Feb. 23 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that he “is not a dictator” and is willing to give up his leadership of the country in exchange for Ukraine‘s membership in NATO, following President Donald Trump‘s insults last week.
Zelensky revealed the offer at a news conference amid a diplomatic standoff with Trump, who has expressed support for Russia ahead of the third anniversary that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion.
“Yes, I am happy, if it is for the peace of Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “If you need me to leave this chair, I am ready to do that, and I also can exchange it for NATO membership for Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s relationship with NATO has been a point of tension with Russia since the early 2000s. After gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine developed closer ties with the West and formally expressed interest in joining NATO in 2008.
At the time, the alliance welcomed the possibility but did not offer a concrete path to membership, partly over concerns of Russian opposition. When pro-Western protests in Kyiv toppled a Kremlin-backed president in 2014, Russia responded by annexing Crimea and fueling a separatist war in eastern Ukraine.
In response to the 2014 conflict, NATO condemned Russia and increased military aid to Kyiv. But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was partly justified by Putin as a preemptive strike against NATO expansion, though Ukraine was still far from membership.
Ironically, the war deepened Kyiv’s ties with NATO, whose members have since supplied billions in weapons and training for Ukrainian forces. In September 2023, then-Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine was closer than ever to joining NATO.
At the time, Stoltenberg said Ukraine had the backing of the 31 allies in NATO after Finland ended its longstanding policy of neutrality to join the alliance. Sweden was later approved into the alliance in March 2024.
He also reiterated that NATO has made Ukraine’s path to membership in the alliance easier by removing a requirement for a Membership Action Plan and creating a NATO-Ukraine Council to facilitate political discussions.
Zelensky said that now, with peace talks prompted by Trump’s return to power, the topic of joining NATO will be “back on the table.”
The Ukrainian president added that he has invited Trump to visit Ukraine, which has not yet happened, and that his country is “ready to share” its vast rare earth minerals with the United States — a demand he previously rejected — with certain security guarantees.