Peace negotiations with Russia “will depend” on US presidential election, thinks Zelensky

The possibility of starting peace negotiations with Russia “will depend” on the result of the American presidential election, scheduled for November 5, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Russians “will observe U.S. policy on this issue.” And the United States will make its policy known very quickly, after the election, in my opinion,” he said during a meeting Monday with a group of journalists.

Ukraine fears that a victory for former Republican President Donald Trump, who has criticized the military aid paid to kyiv since the start of the Russian invasion of this country in February 2022, will lead to a drying up of these funds.

The Ukrainian president also hoped that Washington could agree to Ukraine’s official invitation to NATO despite its war with Russia, a crucial kyiv project to which the United States remains opposed.

Ukraine does not ask the West for nuclear weapons, assures Zelensky

He took the opportunity to assure that his country was not asking for “nuclear weapons” from its Western allies to fight the Russian invasion, after ambiguous statements on the issue last week. “We are not asking for nuclear weapons to be given to us,” he told reporters on Monday.

Last week, Volodymyr Zelensky suggested in a speech in Brussels that Ukraine would have to have “nuclear weapons” if it could not be part of NATO. “Either Ukraine has nuclear weapons, which will serve as protection, or it must be part of some sort of alliance,” he explained on Thursday, adding that he did not know of any alliance “more effective” than the ‘NATO.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who himself has repeatedly raised the nuclear threat since the start of his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, called these remarks a “dangerous provocation”. “I can say right away that Russia will not allow this to happen under any circumstances,” added the Russian head of state.

After the fall of the USSR, Ukraine agreed to hand over Soviet nuclear weapons stored on its territory to Russia, under an agreement concluded in 1994 and known as the Budapest Memorandum. On Monday, Volodymyr Zelensky estimated that his country had surrendered its nuclear weapons “without receiving anything in exchange”. “We should have exchanged them for (membership in) NATO,” he said.