Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he’s “ready” to resign if it means bringing peace to his country, also suggesting he could step down in exchange for ascension into the NATO alliance.
“If it’s about peace in Ukraine and you really want me to leave my position, I am ready to do that,” Zelensky said at a Kyiv press conference on Sunday. “Secondly, I can exchange it for NATO, if there is such an opportunity.”
The comments from Zelensky come in the aftermath of President Donald Trump‘s accusation that he is a “dictator without elections.”
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“We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating,” Trump said from Mar-a-Lago last Tuesday. “And where a country has been blown to smithereens, you got, most of the cities are laying on their sides. The buildings are collapsed.”
Ukraine has not held elections since the war began nearly three years ago because the government imposed martial law, and elections are not allowed under martial law in Ukraine. Zelensky’s term should have ended last year, and his approval rating is also disputed.
The Ukrainian leader also claimed that Ukraine’s ascension into NATO was “still on the table” during the “Ukraine. Year 2025” conference in Kyiv.
Earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the U.S. does not “believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” though he later walked back the comments, saying that Trump is ultimately the decision-maker in the negotiations.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated last week that NATO membership for Ukraine is still unacceptable to Moscow. His comments came after his participation in the U.S.-Russia summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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“We explained to our colleagues today what President [Vladimir] Putin has repeatedly stressed: that the expansion of NATO, the absorption of Ukraine by the North Atlantic alliance, is a direct threat to the interests of the Russian Federation, a direct threat to our sovereignty,” Lavrov told reporters.
The relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine has seemingly taken a hit this week, as Zelensky initially declined to sign a U.S. proposal to agree to provide the U.S. with access to its rare earth minerals. It spurred Trump to criticize Zelensky, who did the same back, which angered Trump, according to officials in the administration.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who was at the Lavrov meeting in Riyadh, said on Sunday he believes the deal could be finalized this week.
The verbal tussle raised concerns among Ukraine’s supporters in the U.S. and Europe about whether the U.S. would push Ukraine to agree to a deal that is more favorable to Russia.
Witkoff, on Sunday, said that Russia was “provoked” into starting the war, claiming that Ukraine’s desire to join NATO instigated the war.
“The war didn’t need to happen. It was provoked,” he said on CNN, later adding, “It doesn’t necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians. There were all kinds of conversations back then about Ukraine joining NATO. The president has spoken about this — that didn’t need to happen. It basically became a threat to the Russians, and so we have to deal with that fact.”
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Similarly, Hegseth was asked on Fox News Sunday whether it was fair to say Russia attacked Ukraine unprovoked; he said it was “fair to say it’s a very complicated situation.”
“Does all the finger-pointing and pearl-clutching make peace more likely? That’s the enduring question the president is asking. He wants peace,” he said. “So standing here and saying, ‘you’re good, you’re bad, you’re a dictator, you’re not a dictator, you invaded, you didn’t,’ it’s not useful. It’s not productive. And so President Trump isn’t getting drawn into that in unnecessary ways.”