The video was published on Facebook by the OP.
“It’s difficult to say how many years this will last, we are not discussing this yet, whether it will be limited to some years, certain guarantees or not,” Zelensky answered the corresponding question.
According to him, the only thing that was very important for the Ukrainian side was that security guarantees for Ukraine should be voted on in the US Congress.
“We believe that such guarantees will work. Although we all understand that this is Russia and this is the aggressor, whether certain guarantees will stop them in the future, of course, we do not know clearly. That’s why we want to have all the guarantees – a block similar to Article 5 [Устава НАТО]how partners will react. We want to understand how they will react to repeated aggression, if, let’s say, it happens,” Zelensky noted.
The President said that he asks his partners “the same questions” that are “not very comfortable.”
“And there is only one answer. What will happen if there is aggression, how will the United States react? If there is repeated aggression, how will European partners react? How will the world react? Sanctions, weapons, answers? How will it react at sea, on the battlefield? That is, there are really a lot of things here,” Zelensky emphasized.
He added that he wants to get as clear answers to this as possible.
“And so that they are supported in what format, in a legally binding format,” Zelensky concluded.
Context
The issue of security guarantees for Ukraine is one of the key issues in the negotiations on the “peace plan” for resolving the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The Ukrainian and US delegations have already held seven rounds of negotiations on a “peace plan” for resolving the Russian-Ukrainian war. In parallel, the American side is discussing this issue with the Russian Federation.
On December 10, Ukraine handed over to the American side a framework document for a “peace plan” consisting of 20 main points, the president said. According to the NYT, Ukraine, in the US response to the “peace plan,” rejected the renunciation of the Donbass territories and joining NATO.
On December 14 and 15, negotiations between the delegations of Ukraine and the United States were held in Berlin. After the first meeting, US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff reported that “significant progress has been made” in the negotiations. On December 15, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, a member of the Ukrainian negotiating group, Rustem Umerov, expressed hope that by the evening it would be possible to “reach an agreement that will bring us closer to peace.”
AFP reported that Ukraine at this meeting sought a ceasefire without territorial concessions, and, according to Reuters, Zelensky offered to abandon Ukraine's accession to NATO in exchange for security guarantees.
On the evening of December 15 in Berlin, the leaders of several European countries held a meeting on Ukraine, they were joined by Vitkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Trump, after a conversation with European leaders on the issue of peace in Ukraine, said that “things are going well.” The US President believes that a settlement to the Russian-Ukrainian war is “closer than ever.”
