President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his words that the US will provide Ukraine with security guarantees only on the condition of withdrawing Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are just the tip of the iceberg.
He said this during an online conversation with journalists on March 28.
According to the president, he has shown the smaller part of the iceberg regarding these statements, and the larger part is not visible.
"You can formulate it differently. But if Russia says ultimatum that it will end the war only after the Ukrainian Armed Forces withdraw from the entire territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and the Americans say that they will give guarantees after Russia ends the war... You can have different attitudes," the president said.
At the same time, he noted that this is not about pressure on Ukraine from the US, but about the realities of the negotiation process.
"I didnʼt say anything about pressure. Maybe it was perceived that the Americans were allegedly pressuring us to withdraw from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions," the president noted.
He also added that throughout the entire negotiation process with the US, there was no discussion, for example, about guarantees after the ceasefire.
"I want to emphasize that I wanted and publicly said that we wanted to sign security guarantees before the end of the war. They were almost ready, as was the Prosperity Package [an agreement on post-war reconstruction]. But the American side said that this would only be at the moment the war ended," the president said.
- Earlier, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Zelenskyʼs words that the US offered to give up Donetsk and Luhansk regions in exchange for security guarantees a "lie". According to him, Washington did not set conditions regarding the territories and did not demand that Ukraine give up the occupied areas in the east.
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