West German model of joining NATO could be Ukraine’s compromise at talks - Bankova

The West German model of joining NATO where the entire country receives an invitation, but only the part of it, controlled by government, joins the Alliance, is a compromise that Ukraine could make during settlement negotiations to end the war.

This was stated on national television by Serhiy Leshchenko, an advisor to the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, Ukrinform reports.

“In an interview (referring to Lex Fridman’s podcast – ed. ) the President has already voiced this position. The best thing we have to achieve is to ensure that aggression doesn’t repeat in the future, and this implies an invitation to NATO. Formally, legally, it is offered to the entire territory of Ukraine. And the realities are such that this could be a West German model where the government – then in Bonn, and today in Kyiv – controls a certain territory, and the territory controlled by the central government joins NATO, and other territories join after the end of the dictatorship in East German lands, or in this case, the Russian occupation of Ukrainian lands,” Leshchenko said.

At the same time, the advisor emphasized that no one will formulate Ukraine’s negotiating position better than the President “because he is the main negotiator and visionary of ending the war in a way that will meet Ukraine’s national interest.”

“It is important for us to show that Ukraine is ready for negotiations, and Russia is not. We cannot rule out that at some point the U.S. administration will simply choose who to work with next one,” the Office advisor suggested.

Leshchenko also commented on the peace initiatives put forward by President Zelensky.

“We are constantly generating initiatives to show that we do not want them to be offered for us by someone else, as was the case in Budapest in 1994 or in Minsk in 2014. We can draw our own vision of a way out of this crisis, but we want other parties to also go for compromises. If the other party is not ready, then the problem is on their end. Then Ukraine has the right to claim the weapons and assistance that we received at the outset of the war,” he noted.

As reported, in an interview with American podcaster Lex Fridman, Volodymyr Zelensky said negotiations with Russia could only start after agreements have been reached with U.S. President Donald Trump with the participation of the EU on the ways to stop the war and on security guarantees for Ukraine.