Determined to maintain U.S. support, Zelenskyy on Sunday said he would quit as president if that would help resolve the conflict.
“If it is peace for Ukraine, and if you really want me to leave my post, I’m ready,” Zelenskyy said. “Alternatively, I can trade this for NATO membership, if such conditions exist, immediately.”
“I’m focusing on Ukraine’s security today, not in 20 years. And I don’t intend to stay in power for decades,” he said.
Ukraine has long called for membership of NATO defense alliance, something that Russia vehemently opposes as it sees it as a threat.
Russia currently occupies 20% of the country.
As of Jan. 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. had provided $65.9 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded, and around $69.2 billion since Moscow’s initial invasion of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, according to a State Department fact sheet.
More than 12,600 civilians have been killed over the last three years, including at least 669 children, while over 29,300 people have been injured, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
In the third year of the war, civilian casualties were estimated to have risen by around 30%, the OHCHR said last week.
Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has also fallen under attack, with at least “14 large-scale, coordinated attacks and intensifying the difficulties in providing education, healthcare, heating supply, and water distribution. ” since last March alone, creating a “serious electricity deficit, the OHCHR said.
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