Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj sees the results of the US election in November as the key to possible peace talks with Moscow. “It depends on the elections in the US,” Zelensky said in a conversation with journalists in Kiev, the contents of which were released on Tuesday. Russia will “watch US policy,” he added.
He expects that the US's future Ukraine policy will become apparent before the handover of office in January, said Zelenskyi, who met in September with both Donald Trump as well as with Vice President Kamala Harris had met. Zelenskyj showed himself satisfied with both meetingswithout going into details.
Trump had announced several times that he wanted to end the Ukraine war quickly. This could result in him pushing Ukraine to give up Russian-occupied territories and cutting military aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyi was hopeful that the USA would influence Germany's reluctance to allow his country to join NATO. “It is a fact that the German side views joining NATO with skepticism”he said. Germany “fears the Russian reaction.” “We will have to work hard with the German side, but the USA will have influence,” he explained.
The Ukrainian president once again tried to dispel misleading statements about a connection between nuclear weapons and NATO accession. “We are not asking to get nuclear weapons,” emphasized Zelensky. Ukraine wants to join NATO because it has no weapons to stop Putin.
“We gave up our nuclear weapons, but we didn't get access to NATO in return,” he said, alluding to the so-called Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Ukraine therefore renounced the Soviet nuclear weapons that were still stationed on its territory at the time. In return, she received security guarantees from both the United States and Russia, which included, among other things, respect for borders.
Selenskyj said at the EU summit last week: “Either Ukraine has nuclear weapons that serve as protection, or it must be a member of an alliance.” Russian head of state Vladimir Putin then spoke of a “dangerous provocation.”
