New Delhi: With ongoing negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said that Ukraine is no longer insisting on NATO membership, a sensitive issue that was one of Russia's expressed explanations behind attacking its pro-Western neighbor, as reported by news agency AFP.
In one more evident gesture pointed toward appeasing Moscow, Zelenskyy said he is available to "compromise" on the situation with two breakaway pro-Russian territories that President Vladimir Putin perceived as autonomous before unleashing the intrusion on February 24.
"I have cooled down regarding this question a long time ago after we understood that...NATO is not prepared to accept Ukraine," Zelenskyy said in an interview aired Monday night on ABC News.
"The alliance is afraid of controversial things, and confrontation with Russia," the president added.
Alluding to NATO enrollment, Zelenskyy said through an interpreter that he would rather not be the leader of a "country which is begging something on its knees."
Russia has said it doesn't need adjoining Ukraine to join NATO, the overseas partnership made toward the beginning of the Cold War to shield Europe from the Soviet Union.
In more recent years, the partnership has extended endlessly further east to take in previous Soviet alliance nations, enraging the Kremlin.
Russia considers NATO growth to be a danger, as it does the military posture of these new Western allies on its doorstep.
Instantly before he stunned the world by requesting the attack of Ukraine, Putin perceived as autonomous two rebels supportive of Russian "republics" in eastern Ukraine - - Donetsk and Lugansk - - that have been at battle with Kyiv beginning around 2014.
Putin presently needs Ukraine, as well, to remember them as sovereign and free.
Whenever ABC asked him about Russian demand, Zelenskyy said he was available to discourse.
"I'm talking about security guarantees," he said.
He said these two regions "have not been recognized by anyone but Russia, these pseudo republics. But we can discuss and find the compromise on how these territories will live on."
"What is important to me is how the people in those territories are going to live who want to be part of Ukraine, who in Ukraine will say that they want to have them in," Zelenskyy said.
"So the question is more difficult than simply acknowledging them," the president said.
"This is another ultimatum and we are not prepared for ultimatums. What needs to be done is for President Putin to start talking, start the dialogue instead of living in the informational bubble without oxygen."