US Security Guarantees for Ukraine Tied to Surrender of Eastern Donbas Region

The United States is making security guarantees for Ukraine conditional upon Kyiv's surrender of its entire eastern Donbas region to Russia, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian leader's comments came as a delegation of Russian lawmakers heads to Washington for meetings with US counterparts. "We hope that these first, cautious steps will contribute to the continued revival of our bilateral relations," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin had determined the "most important targets" for the visit and would remain "extensively informed." The Duma delegation's trip comes as negotiations aimed at ending Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine , which is now into its fifth year, appear to have stalled despite three rounds of talks between US, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Abu Dhabi and Geneva this year. Zelenskyy: US tying security guarantees to Donbas withdrawal The key sticking point remains Moscow's insistence that Kyiv cede the entirety of its industrial eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk which are largely — but far from entirely — occupied by Russian forces. Kyiv, on the other hand, is determined to obtain concrete security guarantees from its Western allies, both financial and military, to deter any future resumption of Russian aggression. "The Americans are prepared to finalize these guarantees at a high level once Ukraine is ready to withdraw from Donbas," Zelenskyy told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday, while European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc shared concerns about Ukraine being pressured into ceding territory. "This is clearly a wrong ​approach," she said on the sidelines of a ⁠G7 foreign ministers' ​meeting in France on Thursday. "It is, of ​course, ‌the Russian playbook of negotiations: demanding something that has ‌never been theirs. This is a trap that we should ​not walk into." Zelenskyy told Reuters that the US had tied security guarantees to a Ukrainian withdrawl from the Donbas Image: Danylo Antoniuk/Avalon/Photoshot/picture alliance What is the Donbas and why is it important? Around 6,000 square kilometers (3,700 square miles) of the Donbas, largely in Donetsk, remains firmly under Ukrainian control, including a key belt of heavily fortified towns, including Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Kostyantynivka and Pokrovsk . Putin insists that control of the entire Donbas, plus the partially occupied Ukrainian regions Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, a territory he refers to as "Novorossiya" or "New Russia," is an essential Russian war aim and a prerequisite for a ceasefire. If Ukraine refuses to cede the territories, Putin has threatened to take them by force — an undertaking that would "likely take several years to complete" at the Russians' current rate of advance, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW). "I would very much like the American side to understand ​that the eastern part of our country is part of our security guarantees," Zelenskyy told Reuters, adding that the war being waged by the United States and Israel against Iran is changing US President Donald Trump 's approach. How is the Iran war affecting Ukraine? "The ⁠Middle East definitely has an impact on President Trump and his next steps," Zelenskyy said. "President Trump, unfortunately, in my opinion, is still choosing a strategy of putting more pressure on the Ukrainian side." Zelenskyy's suggestion that Washington has tied security guarantees to the ceding of Donbas has been well received in Moscow, from where Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev told Reuters that the development "can't help but make us happy." The conflict in the Middle East is affecting Ukraine in other ways, too, with Zelenskyy claiming that Russia has sought to blackmail the United States by offering to stop sharing military intelligence with Iran if, in return, Washington cuts Ukraine off from its intelligence data. "I have reports from our intelligence services showing that Russia is this and saying: 'We will not pass on intelligence to ​if America stops passing intelligence to Ukraine,'" Zelenskyy said. "Isn't that blackmail? Absolutely." Russia has denied assisting Iran, but Zelenskyy claimed that some Iranian drones used to attack US and allied military assets in the Middle East contained Russian components. On the other hand, Ukraine has also been able to profit from the Iran war by offering its own hard-won expertise in drone warfare to Gulf states coming under attack from Iranian "Shahed" drones, which Russia has deployed extensively in Ukraine over the past four years. Britain: Learning from Ukrainian soldiers To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video 04:41 Are US weapons earmarked for Ukraine being diverted to the Gulf? Also on Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is considering diverting munitions originally earmarked for Ukraine to the Gulf as the war against Iran strains US military supplies . A Pentagon spokesperson told the US newspaper ​that the Defense Department would "ensure that US forces and those of our allies and partners have what they need to ⁠fight ​and win." Among the weapons that could reportedly be redirected are key air defense interceptor ​missiles — including Patriot missiles, the only weapons capable of downing Russian ballistic missiles. The US produces 60 to 65 missiles per month, or about 700 to 800 missiles per year, according to Zelenskyy. "And on the first day in the Middle East war, 803 missiles were used." However, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the supply of US equipment to Ukraine continues and Zelenskyy also thanked the Trump administration for maintaining ​supplies thus far. "Deliveries to us were not stopped," he said in his interview with Reuters. "But this supply of Patriot missiles is not as large as we need." Russia and Ukraine exchange drone strikes Indeed, Russian attacks continued in the early hours of Thursday, hitting four energy facilities in ⁠Ukraine's ⁠southern Odesa region and ​knocking out power to ​thousands of residents. "The damage extensive, will ​take time," energy ​company DTEK said on the ​Telegram messaging app, saying power had been restored to ​31,500 families in the region ​but that ⁠33,400 were still ⁠without power. Meanwhile, Ukrainian ⁠drones ⁠reportedly struck ​the ​Kirishi oil ​refinery in Russia's northwestern Leningrad region. Regional governor ​Alexander Drozdenko confirmed the attack, saying that over 20 drones were shot down but admitted, "There is damage in the industrial area." The Kirishinefteorgsintez oil refinery, one of the largest in the country, halted ‌processing on Thursday, two industry sources told Reuters , estimating that around 40% of ​Russia's crude oil exporting capacity has already been shut as a result of drone attacks, seizures of shadow fleet tankers and the closure of the Druzhba pipeline on the territory of ​Ukraine. Meanwhile, in the Donbas, Russian troops are reportedly gearing up for a new spring offensive against the Donetsk fortress belt, with fierce fighting taking place along the roughly 1,250-kilometer (750-mile) front line, according to Ukrainian commander-in-chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi. "Over the past weeks, the Russians have intensified pressure on the battlefield and in the air," Elina Beketova of the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis told the Associated Press . Robert Murrett, a retired vice admiral in the US Navy and deputy director of Syracuse University's Institute for Security Policy and Law, added that Russia is experimenting with "new approaches" on the "tactical level," including incorporating mechanized infantry and armor in its offensive. Edited by: Sean Sinico